And with this, Tommy started for home and the hoe, and somehow the task didn’t look so very dreadful after all.
CHAPTER FOUR
TOMMY BECOMES A VERY HUMBLE PERSON
“Hello, old Mr. Sobersides! Where are you bound for?” As he spoke, Tommy thrust a foot in front of old Mr. Toad and laughed as Mr. Toad hopped up on it and then off, quite as if he were accustomed to having big feet thrust in his way. Not that Tommy had especially big feet. They simply were big in comparison with Mr. Toad. “Never saw you in a hurry before,” continued Tommy. “What’s it all about? You are going as if you were bound for somewhere in particular, and as if you had something special on your mind. What is it, anyway?”
Now of course old Mr. Toad didn’t make any reply. At least he didn’t make any that Tommy heard. If he had, Tommy wouldn’t have understood it. The fact is, it did look, for all the world, as if it was just as Tommy had said. If ever any one had an important engagement to keep and meant to keep it, Mr. Toad did, if looks counted anything. Hoppity-hop-hop-hop, hoppity-hop-hop-hop, he went straight down toward the Green Meadows, and he didn’t pay any attention to anybody or anything.
Tommy was interested. He had known old Mr. Toad ever since he could remember, and he couldn’t recall ever having seen him go anywhere in particular. Whenever Tommy had noticed him, he had seemed to be hopping about in the most aimless sort of way, and never took more than a half dozen hops without sitting down to think it over. So it was very surprising to see him traveling along in this determined fashion, and, having nothing better to do, Tommy decided to follow him and find out what he could.
So down the Lone Little Path traveled old Mr. Toad, hoppity-hop-hop-hop, hoppity-hop-hop-hop, and behind him strolled Tommy. And while old Mr. Toad seemed to be going very fast, and was, for him, Tommy was having hard work to go slow enough to stay behind. And this shows what a difference mere size may make.
When they reached the wishing-stone, Mr. Toad was tired from having hurried so, and Tommy was equally tired from the effort of going slow, so both were glad to sit down for a rest. Old Mr. Toad crept in under the edge of the wishing-stone on the shady side, and Tommy, still thinking of old Mr. Toad, sat down on the wishing-stone itself.
“I wonder,” he chuckled, “if he has come down here to wish. Perhaps he’ll wish himself into something beautiful, as they do in fairy stories. I should think he’d want to. Goodness knows, he’s homely enough! It’s bad enough to be freckled, but to be covered with warts—ugh! There isn’t a single beautiful thing about him.”
As he said this, Tommy leaned over that he might better look at old Mr. Toad, and Mr. Toad looked up at Tommy quite as if he understood what Tommy had said, so that Tommy looked straight into Mr. Toad’s eyes.