have anything happen to
him."

"What's this--a party?" a voice called suddenly from under the bank. And
then Mr. Frog himself, looking fine and fit, hopped up and stood before
the company, with a broad grin on his face.

"Where have you been?" they shouted. "We were worried about you."

"Oh, I've been having a mud bath at the bottom of the creek," Mr. Frog
told them. "Mud baths, you know, are very healthful. And I advise you
all to try one."

XXI

MUD BATHS

Though Mr. Frog agreed cheerfully to show his neighbors how to take a
mud bath, there wasn't even one of them that accepted his offer.

To be sure, old Mr. Turtle remarked that there was a good deal to be
said about mud baths. And then he waddled to the water's edge and swam
away.

"You heard what he said," Mr. Frog continued, turning to those who were
left. "It's simple enough. All one has to do is to dive down to the
bottom of the creek and bury himself snugly in the soft mud."

"How do you breathe?" somebody inquired.

"Oh, that's simple enough," Mr. Frog replied. "You breathe through your
skin."

Smiles appeared on the faces of his listeners. And here and there a
cough sounded. It was plain that the company had little faith in Mr.
Frog's easy explanation.

"Doesn't it hurt your skin to breathe through it?" some one else asked.

"What if it does?" Ferdinand Frog retorted. "When your skin becomes
worn, pull it off!"

Everybody laughed heartily at his answer; or at least, everybody except
Long Bill Wren and his wife. They exchanged a thoughtful look. For they
knew Mr. Frog's ways better than his other neighbors did.

Now, Ferdinand Frog did not mind the laughter at all.

"Of course," he went on, "you can't breathe through your skin quite so
well as you can in the _regular_ way. After you have stayed in the mud a
while, you'll begin to want a _regular_ breath of fresh air. So then you
come up to the top of the water."

"Cat-tails and pussy-willows!" Long Bill Wren cried out. "I'm sure I
shall never take a mud bath. They seem to me to be very dangerous."

"Not at all!" Mr. Frog assured him. "They're as safe as standing on your
head." And thereupon he stood on his own head, to prove that what he
said was true.

Still the company was not moved to take Mr. Frog's advice and try a mud
bath. Most of them declared that nothing could induce them to undertake
such a risky act. But a few daring ones said that if all the rest would
take mud ba