If she could not have her own way, she cried; if she could not have everything for which she wished, she cried.
Her mother told her one day that she would melt away in tears if she cried so often. "You are like the boy who cried for the moon," she told her, "and if it had been given to him it would not have made him happy, for what possible use could the moon be to any one out of its proper place? And that is the way with you; half the things for which you cry would be of no use to you if you got them."
Tearful did not take warning or heed her mother's words of wisdom, and kept on crying just the same.
One morning she was crying as she walked along to school, because she wanted to stay at home, when she noticed a frog hopping along beside her.
"Why are you following me?" she asked, looking at him through her tears.
"Because you will soon form a pond around you with your tears," replied the frog, "and I have always wanted a pond all to myself."
"I shall not make any pond for you," said Tearful, "and I do not want you following me, either."
The frog continued to hop along beside her, and Tearful stopped crying and began to run, but the frog hopped faster, and she could not get away from him, so she began to cry again.
"Go away, you horrid green frog!" she said.
At last she was so tired she sat on a stone by the roadside, crying all the time.