[Illustration:  “We were sorry to lose the General.”]

But what do you think?  After staying away for three days and nights the General came back safe and sound!  We knew it was our own beloved General, and not any common stranger-frog, because there was the scar on his back where the boys had stoned him.  My little sister thought that perhaps the General was born in Lily Pad Pond, on the other side of the village, and only went back to get a sight of the pond lilies, which were just in full bloom.  If that was so, I cannot blame the General; for snow-white pond lilies, with their golden hearts and the green frills round their necks, are the loveliest things in the world, as they float among their shiny pads on the surface of the pond.  Did you ever see them?

All our frogs had names of their own, of course, and we knew them all apart, although they looked just alike to other people.  There was Prince Pouter, Brownie, and Goldilegs; Bright-Eye, Chirp, and Gray Friar; Hop-o’-my-Thumb, Croaker, Baby Mine, Nimblefoot, Tiny Tim, and many others.

We were so afraid that our frogs wouldn’t like the froggery better than any other place in the brook that we gave them all the pleasures we could think of.  They always had plenty of fat juicy flies and water-bugs for their dinners, and after a while we put some silver shiners and tiny minnows into the pool, so that they would have fishes to play with as well as other frogs.  You know you do not always like to play with other children; sometimes you like kittens and dogs and birds better.

Then we gave our frogs little vacations once in a while.  We tied a long soft woolen string very gently round one of their hind legs, fastened it to a twig of one of the alderbushes, and let them take a long swim and make calls on all their friends.

We had a singing-school for them once a week.  It was very troublesome, for they didn’t like to stand in line a bit, and it is quite useless to try and teach a class in singing unless the scholars will stand in a row or keep in some sort of order.  We used to put a nice little board across the pool, and then try to get the frogs to sit quietly in line during their lesson.  The General behaved quite nicely, and really got into the spirit of the thing, so that he was a splendid example for the head of the class.  Then we used to put Myron W. Whitney next in line, on account of his beautiful bass voice.  We named him after a gentleman who had once sung in our church, and I hope if he ever heard of it he didn’t mind, for the frog was really a credit to him.  Myron W. Whitney behaved nearly as well as the General, but we could never get him to sing unless we held the class just before bedtime, and then the little frogs were so sleepy that they kept tumbling out of the singing-school into the pool.  That was the trouble with them all; they never could quite see the difference between school and pool.  It seems to me they must have known it was very slight after all.