Granddaddy Bullfrog was a wise sort of a person. He rarely spoke, but when he did he always said something worth while.
“Good morning,” shouted Little Jack Rabbit one sunshiny forenoon, stopping at the Old Duck Pond where the Old Gentleman Frog was sitting on a log.
“It’s a good morning if you have helped your mother with her work,” answered Granddaddy Bullfrog.
“I have,” replied the little bunny boy. “I’ve polished the front doorknob, fed the canary and filled the woodbox with kindling.”
“You’re a good little bunny boy,” answered the wise old frog. “When I was a tadpole I worked hard for my mother, but it never hurt me. No, siree!” and Granddaddy Bullfrog smoothed down the wrinkle in his white waistcoat and wiped his spectacles on a clean piece of meadow grass.
“You said, ‘When you were a tadpole.’ Does that mean when you were a boy?” asked Little Jack Rabbit.
“Yes, sir, that’s what it means,” replied the old gentleman frog, snapping up a fly that ventured too near the big log.
Just then Mrs. Oriole from her nest in the Weeping Willow Tree began to sing:
“Up here in my stocking-like nest we swing,
My little birdies and I.