toes was able to climb when none of the
rest of the Toad family could. Old Mr. Toad chuckled.

"Looking for a story as usual, I see," said he. "You ought to go to
Grandfather Frog for this one, because Sticky-toes is really a Frog and
not a Toad. But we are all cousins, and I don't mind telling you about
Sticky-toes, or rather about his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather,
who was the first of the family ever to climb a tree. You see, it is all
in the family, and I am very proud of my family, which is one of the
very oldest."

Peter settled himself comfortably and prepared to listen. Old Mr. Toad
snapped up a foolish spider who came too near and then cleared his
throat.

"Once on a time," he began, "when Old Mother Nature made the first land
and the first trees and plants, the Toads and the Frogs were the first
to leave the water to see what dry land was like. The Toads, being
bolder than the Frogs, went all over the new land while the Frogs kept
within jumping distance of the water, just as Grandfather Frog does to
this day. There was one Frog, however, who, seeing how bravely and
boldly the Toads went forth to see all that was to be seen in the new
land, made up his mind that he too would see the Great World. He was the
smallest of the Frogs, and his friends and relatives warned him not to
go, saying that he would come to no good end.

"But he wouldn't listen to their dismal croakings and hurried after the
Toads. Being able to make longer jumps than they could, he soon caught
up with them, and they all journeyed on together. The Toads were so
pleased that one of their cousins was brave enough to join them that
they made him very welcome and treated him as one of themselves, so that
they soon got to thinking of him as a Toad and not as a Frog at all.

"Now the Toads soon found that Old Mother Nature was having a hard time
to make plants grow, because as fast as they came up, they were eaten by
insects. You see, she had so many things to attend to in those days when
the world was young that she had to leave a great many things to take
care of themselves and get along the best they could, and it was this
way with the plants. It was then that the great idea came to my
great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, and he called all the Toads
together and proposed that they help Old Mother Nature by catching the
bugs and worms that were destroying the plants.

"Little Mr. Frog, who had been adopted by the Toads, was one of