Brighteyes. "But isn't it hard
work?"

"Yes, it is," replied Mrs. Toad, "and I know you'll excuse me, my dear,
for not stopping my jumping to sit and chat with you, but the truth of
the matter is that I think the butter is beginning to come, and I
daren't stop."

"Oh, don't stop on my account," begged Brighteyes, politely. "I can talk
while you jump."

"Very good," replied the toad, "I think I will soon be finished, though
on hot days the butter is longer in coming," and she began to hop up and
down faster than ever.

Then, all at once, oh, about as soon as you can pull off a porous
plaster when you're quick about it, if poor Mrs. Toad didn't give a cry,
and stop jumping.

"What's the matter?" asked Brighteyes, "has the butter come?"

"No," was the answer, "but I stepped on a sharp stone, and hurt my foot,
and now I can't jump up and down any more. Oh, dear! now the butter will
be spoiled, for there is no one else at my home to finish churning it.
Oh, dear me, and a pinch of salt on a cracker! Isn't that bad luck?" and
she sat down beside a burdock plant.

Well, sure enough, she had cut her foot quite badly, and it was utterly
out of the question for her to jump up and down any more.

"Will you kindly help me to get the churn off my back?" Mrs. Toad asked
of Brighteyes, and the little guinea pig girl helped her.

"All that nice butter is spoiled," went on Mrs. Toad, as she looked in
the churn. "Well, it can't be helped, I s'pose, and there's no use
worrying over buttermilk that isn't quite made. I shall have to throw
this away."

"No, don't," cried Brighteyes quickly.

"Why not?" asked the toad lady.

"Because I will finish churning it for you."

"Do you know how to churn?"

"Not exactly, but I have thought of a plan. See, we will tie the churn
to this blackberry bush stem, and then I will take hold of one end of
the stem, and wiggle it up and down, and the churn will go up and down,
too, on the bush, just as it did when you jumped with it; and then maybe
the butter will come."

"All right, my dear, you may try it," agreed Mrs. Toad. "I'm afraid,
though, that it won't amount to anything, but it can do no harm. I am
sure it is very kind of you to think of it."

So Brighteyes took the churn, and tied it to a low, overhanging branch
of the blackberry bush. Then she took hold of the branch in her teeth,
and stood up on her hind legs and began to wiggle it up and down. The
churn went up and down with t