What a fright for a poor, quiet, old Bullfrog, as little wiry, wicked
Wasp came at him, barking and yelping. He jumped with all his force
sheer over a patch of bushes into the river, and swam back to his old
home among the cat-tails. And always after that it was observable
that he was very low-spirited, and took very dark views of life; but
nothing made him so angry as any allusion to Mother Magpie, of whom,
from that time, he never spoke except as OLD MOTHER MISCHIEF.



THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE



Once upon a time a gentleman went out into a great forest, and cut
away the trees, and built there a very nice little cottage. It was
set very low on the ground, and had very large bow-windows, and so
much of it was glass that one could look through it on every side and
see what was going on in the forest. You could see the shadows of
the fern-leaves, as they flickered and wavered over the ground, and
the scarlet partridge-berry and winter-green plums that matted round
the roots of the trees, and the bright spots of sunshine that fell
through their branches and went dancing about among the bushes and
leaves at their roots. You could see the chirping sparrows and the
thrushes and robins and bluebirds building their nests here and there
among the branches, and watch them from day to day as they laid their
eggs and hatched their young. You could also see red squirrels, and
gray squirrels, and little striped chip-squirrels, darting and
springing about, here and there and everywhere, running races with