"Way back in the days when the world was young," said she, "Old Mother
Nature made the first Alligators before she made the first birds, or the
first animals, so Old Ally and Mrs. 'Gator, who live way down south now,
belong to a very old family and are proud of it. In the beginning of
things there was very little dry land, as you may have heard, so old Mr.
and Mrs. 'Gator, who of course were not old then, were made to live in
the water with the fish. Old Mother Nature was experimenting then. She
was planning to make a great deal more land, and she wanted living
creatures on it, so she gave the 'Gators legs and feet instead of fins,
and lungs to breathe air instead of gills for breathing in the water as
fish do. Then, having many other things to attend to, she told them
they would have to take care of themselves, and went about her business.

"It didn't take Mr. and Mrs. 'Gator long to discover that their legs
were not of much use in the water, for they used their powerful tails
for swimming. Then one day Mrs. 'Gator crawled out on land and right
away discovered what those legs were for. She could go on dry land while
fishes could not. It didn't take her long to find out that nothing was
quite so fine as a sun-bath, as she lay stretched out on the bank, so
she and Mr. 'Gator spent most of their time on sunny days taking
sun-baths.

"One day Old Mother Nature came along and whispered a wonderful secret
to Mrs. 'Gator. 'I am going to give you some eggs,' whispered Old
Mother Nature, 'some eggs of your very own, and if you watch over them
and keep them warm, out of each one a baby 'Gator will some day creep.
But if you let those eggs get cold, there will be no babies. Don't
forget that you must keep them warm.'

"Old Mother Nature was as good as her word. She gave Mrs. 'Gator twenty