Still, the lizard would not give up all hope.
That same crawfish that had lost a leg lived farther down the stream, and he was very old and wise. She would get him to come and look at the tadpole and give his advice.
So the kindly little lizard bustled away, and soon she came back, to where the tadpole was lying, and the crawfish came with her, twiddling his feelers, and staring both ways with his goggle eyes.
“Sick tadpole!” he cried. “This is no tadpole!” Then, coming closer, the crawfish went on: “Why are you lying here? Why aren’t you over in the swamp singing with all the rest of them? Don’t you know you are a frog?”
“A frog!” cried the lizard.
But the young tadpole frog leaped clear out of the brook with a joyous cry.
“A frog!” he shouted. “Why, that’s the best of all! If that’s true I must say good-bye, little Lizard. Hey for the wide green swamp and the loud frog chorus under the light of the moon! Good-bye, little friend, good-bye! I shall never forget what you have done for me.”
So the frog went away to join his brothers.
The little lizard felt quite lonely for a while after the frog had gone; but she comforted herself by thinking how happy he must be.
Often in the twilight, or when the moon was bright, she listened to the chorus of frogs as they sang over in the swamp, and wondered if the one who sang so much louder and deeper than the rest was the little frog who had tried so hard to be a bird.