Now Peter knew that there must be a good story about Spotty and his house, and you know Peter dearly loves a good story. So at the very first opportunity the next day, he hurried over to the Smiling Pool to ask Grandfather Frog about it. As usual, Grandfather Frog was sitting on his big green lily-pad. No sooner did Peter pop his head above the edge of the bank of the Smiling Pool than Grandfather Frog exclaimed:
"Chug-a-rum! You've kept me waiting a long time, Peter Rabbit. I don't like to be kept waiting. If you wanted to know about Spotty the Turtle, why didn't you come earlier?" All the time there was a twinkle in the big, goggly eyes of Grandfather Frog.
Peter was so surprised that he couldn't find his tongue. He hadn't said a word to any one about Spotty, so how could Grandfather Frog know what he had come for? For a long time he had had a great deal of respect for Grandfather Frog, who, as you know, is very old and very wise, but now Peter felt almost afraid of him. You see, it seemed to Peter as if Grandfather Frog had read his very thoughts.
"I—I didn't know you were waiting. Truly I didn't," stammered Peter. "If I had, I would have been here long ago. If you please, how did you know that I was coming and what I was coming for?"
"Never mind how I knew. I know a great deal that I don't tell, which is more than some folks can say," replied Grandfather Frog.
Peter wondered if he meant him, for you know Peter is a great gossip. But he didn't say anything, because he didn't know just what to say, and in a minute Grandfather Frog began the story Peter so much wanted.
"Of course you know, without me telling you, that there is a reason for Spotty's carrying his house around with him, because there is a reason for everything in this world. And of course you know that that reason is because of something that happened a long time ago, way back in the days when the world was young. Almost everything to-day is the result of things that happened in those long-ago days. The great-great-ever-so-great grandfather of Spotty the Turtle lived then, and unlike Spotty, whom you know, he had no house. He was very quiet and bashful, was Mr. Turtle, and he never meddled with any one's business, because he believed that the best way of keeping out of trouble was to attend strictly to his own affairs.
"He was a good deal like Spotty, just as fond of the water and just as slow moving, but he didn't have the house which Spotty has now. If he had had, he would have been saved a great deal of trouble and worry. For a long time everybody lived at peace with everybody else. Then came the trying time, of which you already know, when those who lived on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest had the very hardest kind of work to find enough to eat, and were hungry most of the time. Now Mr. Turtle, living in the Smiling Pool, had plenty to eat. He had nothing to worry about on that score. Everybody who lives in the Smiling Pool knows that it is the best place in the world, anyway."
Grandfather Frog winked at Jerry Muskrat, who was listening, and Jerry nodded his head.
"But presently Mr. Turtle discovered that the big people were eating the little people whenever they could catch them, and that he wasn't safe a minute when on shore, and not always safe in the water," continued Grandfather Frog. "He had two or three very narrow escapes, and these set him to thinking. He was too slow and awkward to run or to fight. The only thing he could do was to keep out of sight as much as possible. So he learned to swim with only his head out of water, and sometimes with only the end of his nose out of water. When he went on land, he would cover himself with mud, and then when he heard anybody coming, he would lie perfectly still, with his legs and his tail and his head drawn in just as close as possible, so that he looked for all the world like just a little lump of brown earth.