"M-row-ow, fit-z-z!" and Rat and Mouse were killed.
"Holla!" says the Frog; "this won't do! Perhaps they'll be after me in a minute. I must be off home to my mother." And sure enough off he went (trembling like a leaf), but as rapidly as he could. "Oh, why did I ever leave home?" said this foolish Frog: "I should have been safe enough with my mother. I'll never leave home again. Never! never! never!"
"Quack, quack!" observed a Duck who had been watching him.
"Oh, my goodness gracious!" said the Frog; "what shall I do now? There's the very Duck that ate up my uncle who went abroad! Now, if I can't cross over this brook in a single jump, I shall never get home alive. Here goes!"
But, alas! since it must be told, he could not cross the brook in one jump.
In he fell—splash! Up came the Duck.
"Quack, quack! gobble, gobble, gobble!" and the poor Frog never got home at all.
We are all sorry for his untimely end, and wish that the Duck had not gobbled him up: but we must not forget that if he had been less self-willed and obstinate, if he had only paid attention to what his mother told him, he might have been safe at home—perhaps, in due course, married to an amiable Frog, and the father of a large family of innocent little tadpoles.
