"Poor Great-grandfather Frog was in a terrible fix. Big tears rolled down his cheeks. He choked and choked and choked, until it looked very much as if he might choke to death. Just in time, in the very nick of time, who should come along but Old Mother Nature. She saw right away what the trouble was, and she pulled out the fish. Then she asked how that fish had happened to be in such a place as Great-grandfather Frog's mouth. When he could get his breath, he told her all about it--how food had been getting scarce and how he had discovered that fish were good to eat, and how he had make a mistake in catching a fish too big for his mouth. Old Mother Nature looked thoughtful. She saw the great numbers of young fish. Suddenly she reached over and put a finger in Great-grandfather Frog's mouth and stretched it sideways. Then she did the same thing to the other corner. Great-grandfather Frog's mouth was three times as big as it had been before. "'Now,' said she, 'I don't believe you'll have any more trouble, and I'm going to do the same thing for all the other Frogs.' "She did that very day, and from then on the Frogs no longer had any trouble in getting plenty to eat. So that is where I got my big mouth, and I tell you right now I wouldn't trade it for anything anybody else has got," concluded Grandfather Frog, as he snapped up a foolish green fly who came too near. "I think it is splendid, perfectly splendid," cried Peter. "I wish I had one just like it." And then he wondered why Grandfather Frog laughed so hard. II WHERE MISER THE TRADE RAT FIRST SET UP SHOP It was quite by accident that Peter Rabbit first heard of Miser the Trade Rat. You know how it is with Peter; he is forever using those big ears of his to learn interesting things. That is what ears are for; but there is a right way and a wrong way to use them, and I am afraid that Peter isn't always over-particular in this respect. I suspect, in fact I know, that Peter sometimes listens when he has no business to listen and knows he has no business to listen. Again he sometimes overhears things quite by accident when he cannot very well help hearing. It was in this way that he first heard of Miser the Trade Rat. Peter had crept into a hollow log in the Green Forest to rest and to feel absolutely safe while he was doing it. He had been there only a little while when he heard light footsteps outside and a moment later a voice which made him shiver a little in spite of himself and the knowledge that he was perfectly safe. The footsteps and the voice were Old Man Coyote's. Very carefully Peter peeped out. Old Man Coyote had sat down close by the log in which Peter was hiding. On a dead tree close at hand sat Ol' Mistah Buzzard, who had come up from way down south for the summer, and it was to him that Old Man Coyote was talking.