hat's the joke?" he asked.

Little Joe Otter simply pointed to Grandfather Frog. Little Joe had
laughed so much that he couldn't even speak. Spotty looked over to the
big green lily-pad and started to laugh too. Then he saw great tears
rolling down from Grandfather Frog's eyes and heard little choky sounds.
He stopped laughing and started for Grandfather Frog as fast as he could
swim. He climbed right up on the big green lily-pad, and reaching out,
grabbed the end of the fish tail in his beak-like mouth. Then Spotty
the Turtle settled back and pulled, and Grandfather Frog settled back
and pulled. Splash! Grandfather Frog had fallen backward into the
Smiling Pool on one side of the big green lily-pad. Splash! Spotty the
Turtle had fallen backward into the Smiling Pool on the opposite side of
the big green lily-pad. And the fish which had caused all the trouble
lay floating on the water.

"Thank you! Thank you!" gasped Grandfather Frog, as he feebly crawled
back on the lily-pad. "A minute more, and I would have choked to death."

"Don't mention it," replied Spotty the Turtle.

"I never, never will," promised Grandfather Frog.

IX

OLD MR. TOAD VISITS GRANDFATHER FROG

Grandfather Frog and old Mr. Toad are cousins. Of course you know that
without being told. Everybody does. But not everybody knows that they
were born in the same place. They were. Yes, Sir, they were. They were
born in the Smiling Pool. Both had long tails and for a while no legs,
and they played and swam together without ever going on shore. In fact,
when they were babies, they couldn't live out of the water. And people
who saw them didn't know the difference between them and called them by
the same names--tadpoles or pollywogs. But when they grew old enough to
have legs and get along without tails, they parted company.

You see, it was this way: Grandfather Frog (of course he wasn't
grandfather then) loved the Smiling Pool so well that he couldn't think
of leaving it. He heard all about the Great World and what a wonderful
place it was, but he couldn't and wouldn't believe that there could be
any nicer place than the Smiling Pool, and so he made up his mind that
he would live there always.

But Mr. Toad could hardly wait to get rid of his tail before turning his
back on the Smiling Pool and starting out to see the Great World.
Nothing that Grandfather Frog could say would stop him, and away Mr.
Toad went, when he was so small that he cou