tch on his hands
and then climbed about in the bushes and low trees, ridding them of bugs
and worms. Of course, it wasn't very pleasant to have that pitch on his
hands, because dirt and all sorts of things which he happened to touch
stuck to them, but he made the best of a bad matter and washed them
carefully when he was through with his day's work.

"Quite unexpectedly Old Mother Nature returned to see how the trees and
the plants were getting on. You see, she was worried about them. When
she found what the Toads had been doing, she was mightily pleased. Then
she noticed that some of the bushes and low trees had very few leaves
left, while others looked thrifty and strong.

"'That's queer,' said Old Mother Nature to herself and went over to
examine a bush. Hanging on to a branch for dear life she saw a queer
little fellow who was so busy that he didn't see her at all. It was
little Mr. Frog. He was catching bugs as fast as he could. Old Mother
Nature wrinkled up her brows. 'Now however did he learn to climb?'
thought she. Then she hid where she could watch. By and by she saw
little Mr. Frog tumble out of the bush, because, you know, the pitch on
his hands had worn off. He hurried over to a pine-tree and rubbed more
pitch on and then jumped up into the bush and went to work again.

"You can guess how astonished Old Mother Nature was when she saw this
performance. And she was pleased. Oh, yes, indeed, Old Mother Nature
was wonderfully pleased. She was pleased because little Mr. Frog was
trying so hard to help her, and she was pleased because he had been so
smart in finding a way to climb. When she had laughed until she could
laugh no more at the way little Mr. Frog had managed to stick to his
work, she took him down very gently and wiped the pitch from his hands.
Then she gently pinched the end of each finger and each toe so that they
ended in little round discs instead of being pointed as before, and in
each little disc was a clean, sticky substance. Then she tossed him up
in a tree, and when he touched a branch, he found that he could hold on
without the least danger of falling.

"'I appoint you caretaker of my trees,' said Old Mother Nature, and from
that day on little Mr. Frog lived in the trees, as did his children and
his children's children, even as Sticky-toes does to-day. And though he
was really a Frog, he was called the Tree Toad, and the Toads have
always been proud to have him so called. And this is the e