"His appetite is still good," she explained. "I saw Mr. Frog swallow his skin after he had pulled it off. And it didn't seem to disagree with him. He went in swimming right afterwards."
"Ah!" Long Bill exclaimed. "That's a very dangerous thing to do. At least, I've often heard Johnnie Green say that a boy ought not to go in the water sooner than a full hour after he has had a meal."
"There he is now!" Mrs. Wren cried abruptly. "There's Mr. Frog!"
Peeping out of the doorway on one side of his ball-shaped house, Long Bill could see Ferdinand Frog paddling about in Black Creek.
While they were watching him, he sank before their eyes. And after a time they couldn't help feeling uneasy, because their odd neighbor did not show himself again.
"I'm afraid——" Long Bill whispered at last——"I'm afraid he was taken with a cramp, for that's what you get by swimming too soon after a meal—so Johnnie Green says. . . . I'm glad now that we didn't let Mr. Frog teach our children to swim, because it's easy to see that he's a careless fellow."
So worried were Long Bill and his wife over Mr. Frog's disappearance that they hurried out and told all their neighbors about it. And soon a crowd had gathered upon the bank of the creek, to watch the spot where Mr. Frog had vanished.
They stayed there for a long time. But to their great alarm, their missing friend did not reappear.
"I hope he's safe," old Mr. Turtle piped in his thin, quavering voice. "He's making a new suit for me; and I'd hate to have anything happen to him."
"What's this—a party?" a voice called suddenly from under the bank. And then Mr. Frog himself, looking fine and fit, hopped up and stood before the company, with a broad grin on his face.