“‘i didn’t move, but my tongue DID’”
“I didn’t move, but my tongue did, and it went so quick you couldn’t see it. When you eat, you bring things to your tongue, but when I eat, I send my tongue to my dinner. It’s a simpler way, I think. My tongue is rather wonderful too. It is fastened to my mouth in front, and rolled back; besides, it has a sort of glue on the end that catches whatever there is to catch. The number of pests I eat in a day would astonish you. Slugs, grubs, snails, mosquitoes, and—well, what’s the matter? You don’t like such things, I suppose. Tastes differ, you see. Now, to tell my story. What do you think I looked like when I was first hatched?”
“A tadpole, of course,” answered Ruth. “I’ve seen lots of tadpoles. They are funny, wiggly things.”
“They are lively fellows,” agreed Mr. Rana, swallowing several times, while Ruth silently watched the sides of his neck puff out.
“Please tell me why you swallow so much,” she asked at last. “You are not eating, are you?”
Mr. Rana smiled, and this time the smile went all around his mouth.
“I swallow to breathe,” he answered. “I can’t swallow air while my mouth is open, and so I stop talking and shut it. Every time I swallow, the air sac on the side of my neck fills out. That’s why my voice has such a lovely croak. My poor wife hasn’t any air sac, so her voice is never croaky.”
“But in the water——” began Ruth.
“In the water,” answered Mr. Rana, “I take in air through my skin. It is very porous. My skin I mean. It is really a pleasure to tell you things. Now to get back to the beginning, being a tadpole, or, I should say, an egg. Looking at me now, could you imagine that I was once a tiny egg? It’s a fact, though. My mother laid her eggs near some water rushes, and, as I said, these eggs were but tiny specks, black specks enclosed in a gluey case, which the water made swell, until it looked like a mass of jelly. I came from one of those specks, and I tell you I was a lively fellow when I was first hatched. Some people say tadpoles are all head and tail, but there were other parts to me—places for legs, and I know I had two eyes and a mouth. Of course I made the most of life. A whole pond to circle in seemed a mighty big world to me, and I was soon swimming about with a lot of other tads, slapping tails, and having all kinds of fun. Indeed, we were always lively, especially when we were trying to get away from those who wanted us for dinner. There were lots of them too.”
“Ugh!” said Ruth, screwing up her face.