“You can find it in a natural history book, if you look,” said the frog; “but I ought to know best myself. And I can tell you this, that when a frog speaks to a little boy, he always speaks the truth.”
“Well, then,” said Tommy Smith, “I will never hurt a frog again.”
How pleased the poor frog was when he heard that. He gave a great hop out of Tommy Smith’s hand, and came down upon the grass again, and then he hopped about for a little while, jumping higher each time than the time before. “Frogs always speak the truth,” he said,—“when they speak to little boys. And now, perhaps, you would like to learn something more about me. Ask me any question you like, and I will answer it, because of what you have just promised.”
This puzzled Tommy Smith a little, because he did not know where to begin, but at last he said, “You seem to me a very big frog. Were you always as big as you are now?”
“Why, of course not,” said the frog, “a frog grows up just as much as a little boy does. I was once so small that you would hardly have been able to see me. But, besides being smaller, I was quite a different shape to what I am now. I had no legs at all, but instead of them I had a long tail, with which I used to swim about in the water, so that I was much more like a fish than a frog, and many people would have thought that I was a fish.”
“That sounds very funny,” said Tommy Smith.
“But were not you once much smaller than you are now?” said the frog.
“Oh yes!” Tommy Smith answered, “but however small I was, I was always a little boy, and had hands and feet, just as I have now.”
“With you it is different,” said the frog; “but there are some animals who are one thing when they are born, but change into another as they grow older. It is so with us frogs, and, if you listen, I will tell you all about it.”