“Of course there were many fish, and these also increased very fast, and the big fish ate the Frogs whenever they could catch them, just as they do to this day.  The big fish also ate the little fish, and it wasn’t long before the Frogs and the little fish took to living where the water was not deep enough for the big fish to swim, and this made it all the harder to get enough to eat.  The mouths of the Frogs in those days were not big.  In fact, they were quite small.  You see, living on the kind of food they did, they had no need of big mouths.

“One day as a Great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather Frog sat with just his head out of water, wondering what it would seem like to have his stomach really filled, a school of little fish came swimming about him, and it popped into his head that if little fish were good for big fish to eat, they might be good for a Frog to eat.  So he caught the first one that came within reach, and he found it was good to eat.  He liked it so well that after that he caught fish whenever he could.  Of course he swallowed them whole.  He had to, because he had no chewing or biting teeth.

“Now the Frogs always have been famous for their appetites, and Great-grandfather Frog found that it took a great many of these teeny weeny fish to make a comfortable meal.  He was thinking of this one day when a larger fish came within reach, and almost without realizing what he was doing Great-grandfather snapped at and caught him.  He caught the fish by the tail and at once began to swallow it, which, of course, was no way to swallow a fish.  But Great-grandfather Frog had much to learn in those day, and so he tried to swallow that fish tail first instead of head first.  He got the tail down and the smallest part of the body, and then that fish stuck.  Yes, Sir, that fish stuck.  The fact was, Great-grandfather Frog’s mouth wasn’t wide enough.  It was bad enough not to be able to swallow all of that fish, but what was worse was the discovery that he couldn’t get up again what he had swallowed.  That fish was stuck!  It would go neither down nor up.

“Poor Great-grandfather Frog was in a terrible fix.  Big tears rolled down his cheeks.  He choked and choked and choked, until it looked very much as if he might choke to death.  Just in time, in the very nick of time, who should come along but Old Mother Nature.  She saw right away what the trouble was, and she pulled out the fish.  Then she asked how that fish had happened to be in such a place as Great-grandfather Frog’s mouth.  When he could get his breath, he told her all about it—­how food had been getting scarce and how he had discovered that fish were good to eat, and how he had make a mistake in catching a fish too big for his mouth.  Old Mother Nature looked thoughtful.  She saw the great numbers of young fish.  Suddenly she reached over and put a finger in Great-grandfather Frog’s mouth and stretched it sideways.  Then she did the same thing to the other corner.  Great-grandfather Frog’s mouth was three times as big as it had been before.