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I have a curious
little neighbor who always wears a green coat and has some droll
ways. The coat is not plain green either; it is relieved by wavy,
black stripes and gorgeously trimmed with three bands of gold color
down the back. Then he has a most dainty vest of gray, green
pantaloons, very tight, and a pair of gold spectacles. He is a very
dignified person, and his gold specks make him look as wise as an
owl. I said he was my neighbor, and he is, for he lives in a pond
not far off. I suppose if you were to see him sitting on the bank
there some morning, you would call him a frog!
A droll thing about this little fellow is that when he was a little
baby he wasn't a frog but a little fish. He had a tail and gills and
swam around in the water like other fish. He was called a tadpole
and ate vegetable matter. As he grew a wonderful change came over
him. In the first place his gills withered away. After a while a
pair of legs burst out of his skin. They grew quite long, and then
another pair burst out in front of the first ones, and he became the
possessor of a tongue. The next thing that happened was his long
tail shrank away, his lungs developed, and at last he hopped out of
the water a perfect frog. If you think this too strange to be true
you can see the whole thing for yourself. Any time in the spring go
to the nearest pond where you will find plenty of the eggs floating
on the surface. Gather a few and put diem in water. Then keep close
watch of diem and you'll see gill these wonders. Dnring the summer
my little neighbor is a great eater, devouring a host of insects,
worms and such things. But in the fall he becomes melancholy and
leaves off eating. And when the weather gets too cool for his light
coat, he has no furs or feather overcoat you know, he buries himself
snugly in the mud at the bottom of his native pond and goes to sleep
for the winter. A pretty good nap I should think. He is often frozen
but he doesn't much care for that. The first warm weather of spring
brings him out lively and bright as ever.
My Neighbor in Green
A Fictional Short Story by
Agnes Taylor Ketchum & Ida M. Jorgensen
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