em," he said.

"Oh!" yelled Goody, and went backwards into her hole and showed herself
no more.

But Mrs. Reed-Warbler fainted on her five eggs and the carp swam on with
his sad, weary face.

CHAPTER IV

The Water-Spider

[Illustration]

Little Mrs. Reed-Warbler was not feeling very well.

She was nervous and tired from sitting on the eggs and she had just a
touch of fever. She could not sleep at night, or else she dreamt of the
cray-fish and the carp and the eel and screamed so loud that her husband
nearly fell into the pond with fright.

"I wish we had gone somewhere else," she said. "Obviously, there's none
but common people in this pond. Just think how upset I was about Goody
Cray-Fish. Do you really believe she eats her children?"

Before he could reply, the eel stuck his head out of the mud and made
his bow:

"Absolutely, madam," he said, "ab-so-lutely. That is to say, if she can
get hold of them. They decamp as soon as they can, for they have an
inkling, you know, of what's awaiting them. Children are cleverer than
people think."

"But that's terrible," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Oh, well," said the eel, "one eats so many things from year's end to
year's end! I don't condemn her for that. But, I admit, it doesn't look
well amid all that show of affection.... Hullo, there's the pike!...
Forgive me for retiring in the middle of this interesting conversation."

He was off.

And the pike appeared among the reeds with wide-open mouth and rows of
sharp teeth and angry eyes.

"Oof!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Come down here and I'll eat you," said the pike, grinning with all his
teeth.

"Please keep to your own element," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, indignantly.

"I eat everything," said the pike, "ev-e-ry-thing. I smell eel, I smell
cray-fish, I smell carp. Where are they? Tell me at once, or I'll break
your reed with one blow of my tail!"

[Illustration: THE PIKE APPEARED AMONG THE REEDS [p. 38 ]

The reed-warblers were silent for sheer terror. And the pike struck out
with his tail and swam away. The blow was so powerful that the reeds
sighed and swayed and the birds flew up with startled screams. But the
reeds held and the nest remained where it was. Mrs. Reed-Warbler settled
down again and her husband began to sing, so that no one should see how
frightened he had been. Then she said:

"A nice place this!"

[Illustration]

"You take things too much to heart," said he. "Life is the sam