Judicially, he decided that he would never be an ant, even if the opportunity should be offered him. Ants were like grownups. They worked hard for no good reason which Dicky could understand and they paid no attention to more important things. But it _would_ be fun to be very small, and live here among weeds like giant trees. It would be fun to hide under the leaves when people came looking for him. He scanned the ground minutely, picturing himself walking here and there among the wonders of the little world--climbing on a straw that was a fallen log, and looking up to see an insect go whirring past with iridescent wings. Then the slope would be a mountain, and the brook at its foot would become a vast shining ocean. Not an ant, though. He would rather be a frog. Vividly, for life, Dicky would remember the day when he’d first seen the frog. It had been back when there’d been a hole in the fence, hidden by weeds. It had been a hole which only he knew about, and several times he’d crawled through and visited the forbidden shores beyond. The brook flowed there dark, deep, and quiet between cement banks, severely walled like almost all the world. But under the footbridge a little way below the house lived the frog. Dicky had known he was there, had heard him at twilight--_krraak! krraak!_ But for a long time he hadn’t known who made the sound. And then, one rain-washed afternoon, he’d crept stealthily along the wet grass of the bank and peered into the shadows beneath the bridge. The frog was sitting on the slimed rubble close to the water--fat, green, self-important. He was squatting there with his tiny forefeet accurately tucked up under him. He had lazy jewel eyes, and was ballooning his mottled throat to send out his _krraak_. Smugly happy he seemed, in his confidence that the world had only been waiting to hear his frog noise. The revelation had been too much for Dicky, and he had burst out laughing. Then he had looked quickly around, alarmed, to see if anyone had heard him. But nobody had except the frog, who promptly went _gchonk!_ into the water. Now the fence had been repaired and there was no way through. If Dicky so much as went near it--forbidden as he was to go that far--his father’s voice came to his ears, just as if his father were not away at work. It said: “Dicky, go home!” But Dicky didn’t grieve unduly. Having found the way blocked, he dismissed it from his thoughts. After all, he had seen the frog, and he could remember it any time he wanted to. Remembering now, he rose to a crouching position among the weeds, and said, “_Krraak, krraak!_” He said it softly under his breath, and smiled to himself.