“Of course not!” answered Uncle Andy impatiently.  “As I was going to say, they were shaped a good deal like those seals you’ve seen in the Zoo, only that instead of flippers they had regulation legs and feet, and also a tail.  It was a tail worth having, too, and not merely intended for ornament.  It was very thick at the base and tapering, something like a lizard’s, and so powerful that one twist of it could drive its owner through the water like a screw.”

“Wish I could swim that way!” murmured the Babe, trying to do the movement, as he imagined it, with his legs.

“But though the Little Furry Ones were just built for swimming,” continued Uncle Andy, graciously overlooking the interruption, “they were actually afraid of it.  They liked to see their father or their mother dive smoothly down into the clear, goldy-brown water of their front door, and out into that patch of yellow sunlight shimmering on the weedy bottom.  But when invited to follow, they drew back into the corner and pretended to be terribly busy.

“One fine morning, however, to their great delight they were led out by the back door, under the bush, and introduced to the outside world.  How huge and strange it looked to them!  For a few minutes they stole about on their absurdly short, sturdy legs, poking their noses into everything, and jumping back startled at the strange smells they encountered; while their parents, lying down nearby, watched them lazily.  At last, beginning to feel more at home in this big, airy world, they fell to romping with each other on the sunny bank, close beside the water.  Presently their parents got up and came over beside them.  The father slipped gracefully in, and began diving, darting this way and that, and throwing himself half-way out of the water.  It was most interesting, I can tell you, and the two little Furry Ones stopped their play, at the very edge of the bank, to watch him.  But when he called to them coaxingly to come in with him and try it, they turned away their heads and pretended to think it wasn’t worth looking at after all.  They would rather look at the trees and the sky, and kept staring up at them as if perfectly fascinated.  And while they were staring upwards in this superior way, they got a great surprise.  Their mother slily slipped her nose under them and threw them, one after the other, far out into the water.”

“Ow!” exclaimed the Babe with a little gasp of sympathy.  He himself felt the shock of that sudden, chill plunge.

Uncle Andy chuckled.

“That’s just the way they felt,” said he.  “When they came to the top again they found, to their surprise, that they could swim; and feeling most indignant and injured they struck out straight for shore.  But there, between them and the good dry ground, swam their mother, and would not let them land.  They did not see how mothers could be so heartless.  But there was no help for it; so they swam out again very haughtily and joined their father in mid-stream.  And before they knew it they were enjoying themselves immensely.