coralline, and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little
rock-garden on all the shore."

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the
sand down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide began
to turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing
and singing and shouting and romping; and the noise they made was
just like the noise of the ripple. So he knew that he had been
hearing and seeing the water-babies all along; only he did not know
them, because his eyes and ears were not opened.

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tom
and some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses;
and when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged him and
kissed him, and then put him in the middle and danced round him on
the sand, and there was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom.

"Now then," they cried all at once, "we must come away home, we
must come away home, or the tide will leave us dry. We have mended
all the broken sea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and
planted all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will see where
the ugly storm swept in last week."

And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat and
clean; because the water-babies come inshore after every storm to
sweep them out, and comb them down, and put them all to rights
again.

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into the
sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty