over there is a nice big toadstool. That will make the finest
umbrella in the world. I'll break it off and bring it to you, and then
you can fly home, holding it over your head, in your wing, and then your
hat and dress won't get wet."

Nellie thanked Grandpa Croaker very kindly and thought what a fine frog
gentleman he was. Off he hopped through the rain, never minding it the
least bit, and just as he got to the toadstool what do you s'pose he
saw? Why, a big, ugly snake was twined around it, just as a grapevine
twines around the clothes-post.

"Hello, there!" cried Grandpa. "You don't need that toadstool at all,
Mr. Snake, for water won't hurt you. I want it for Nellie Chip-Chip, so
kindly unwind yourself from it."

"Indeed, I will not," spoke the snake, saucily, hissing like a steam
radiator on a hot day.

"I demand that you immediately get off that toadstool!" cried Grandpa
Croaker in his hoarsest voice, so that it sounded like distant thunder.
He wanted to scare the snake.

"I certainly will not get off!" said the snake, firmly, "and what's more
I'm going to catch you, too!" And with that he reached out like
lightning and grabbed Grandpa, and wound himself around him and the
toadstool also, and there the poor gentleman frog was, tight fast!

"Oh! Oh! You're squeezing the life out of me!" cried Grandpa
Croaker.

"That's what I intend to do," spoke the snake, savagely.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?" asked Nellie. "Shall I bite his
tail, Mr. Frog?"

"No, stay there. Don't come near him, or he'll grab you," called Grandpa
Croaker in a choking voice. "Besides you'll get all wet, for it's still
raining. I'll get away somehow." But no matter how hard he struggled
Grandpa couldn't get away from the snake, who was pressing him tighter
and tighter against the toadstool.

Poor Grandpa thought he was surely going to be killed, and Nellie was
crying, but she didn't dare go near the snake, and the snake was
laughing and snickering as loud as he could. Oh, he was very impolite!
Then, all of a sudden, along hopped Bully and Bawly, the frog boys. The
ball game had been stopped on account of the rain, you know.

"Oh, look!" cried Bully. "We must save Grandpa from that snake!"

"That's what we must!" shouted Bawly. "Here, we'll make him unwind
himself from Grandpa and the toadstool and then hit him with our
baseball bats."

So those brave frog boys went quite close to the snake, and that wiggily
creature th