Once upon a time, in a fair green land in the midst of the wide, green sea, at the edge of a great green forest there lay a small green pool in a sunny green glade; and in that pool there lived a slimy green frog. "Nothing ever happens to me," said Frog.
Year in, year out, the sun shone down and the flies danced above the water; and when the breeze stirred in the trees and it rained, the juicy snails were easy to find. Frog grew fat and slow and discontented.
"Nothing ever happens to me," said Frog.
Now, close by this pool there ran a swift river that passed over many rocks out of the forest and out of the valley, and altogether out of the frog's knowledge. But up that stream, every year, great silver fish came leaping and swimming, daring the rocks and the shallows as they went. Frog called to them, but they would not listen. They were too proud, and too taken up with their own affairs. For a few days they stayed, and then they were gone.
"Who are they?" Frog asked at last of the shy brown trout who lived there. "Where do they come from?"
"They are my cousins, the Salmon," whispered the Trout, peeping out at him from behind a stone. "And they come from the Sea." She blushed red all down her side at her own daring, and with a whisk of her tail she had vanished under the bank.
Frog had not even noticed. He sat on a leaf, gulping softly to himself with excitement. Where the salmon could go, he could go too. Was he not a frog, and better than any fish? Why had he stayed so long in this one poor pool, when there was all the world to see?
With one mighty leap he jumped straight into the water — splash! — and began to swim downstream. The current carried him swiftly away, and he never looked back. Behind him, the drowsy green glade lay dreaming empty in the sun; but he gave his home barely a moment's thought. "Nothing ever happens there," said Frog.
After many days the river grew very wide, and he came to a great town where the muddy banks were shored up with timber walls, and boats plied across the water, with their oars dipping like fins. The water was dark now, and salty, and it stung him so that he could hardly swim.
But as the frog struggled in the river, not knowing what to do, all of a sudden an old plank came floating by an inch from his nose; and without thinking he scrambled onto it and sat there, gulping, just as if it had been a lily-pad at home, in his own little pool far away.
After a while he got his breath back; and now he found that he was drifting down quite at his ease between the banks on the back of the current. The boats passed across ahead and behind him, and once two children saw him and pointed, squealing: "Look, a frog! a frog! a frog on a boat!"
Frog was very pleased with himself at that. "Now I have a boat nothing can happen to me. See how clever I am!" he boasted. And he snapped up a fly that came too close.
Soon he came to the edge of the town, and the river carried him on and on; and at last he came to the Sea. Frog looked at the great green waves and the shining sand, where the seabirds wheeled and screamed. He had never dreamed of anything like it in all his life. "Now this is adventure!" he said.
But the day wore on, and the current changed. Frog found that his boat was turning back, and moving towards the shore. He jumped into the bitter salt water and began to paddle, but it did not help. The closer he got to the shore the higher the waves began to seem. Now his boat was no longer bobbing up and down, but being pulled towards the shore with every wave — and in the distance he could see the breakers running up the shore and curling into rolling foam. He swam harder, but it was no use. No matter how hard he tried, the sea was carrying him inwards.
"Look at the frog!" mocked a voice, and other voices joined in. "Look at the frog! Look at the frog!"
They swam round and round his boat, darting through the waves with ease, their smooth silver sides rippling with strength. He had found the Salmon at last; and they were laughing at him.
"Only a stupid Frog would try to fight the tide!" they jeered.
"The tide?" said Frog, trying, too late, to look as if he knew what it meant, and they laughed at him again.
"Surely even a Frog can't mistake the Sea for a lily-pond? Did you lose your way among the duckweed, master Frog?"
"No, no!" said Frog, so indignant he almost forgot to swim. "Of course I know where I am! This is an adventure for me."
"You should not be here," the fish taunted, leaping out of the water and splashing him with their tails. "There is a place for everyone; ours is in the sea and yours is in the pond. You will not last long, you know!" And even as they spoke, another wave broke over him and swept him away from his boat.
"Shut up!" shouted Frog, badly frightened now. "Shut up, I tell you! Shut up!"
To his surprise the Salmon shrank away, swimming close together with their wide eyes turned on him in alarm. "Be quiet," they whispered, as if his shrill little voice had cowed them. "Be quiet, foolish frog. When people shout like you, the Snake comes and gobbles them up."
"The Snake?" Frog's voice was shriller than ever, and as the fish winced from his cries he took heart and kicked out more strongly. He met the next wave as it came, and glimpsed his boat just beyond as he hung for a moment poised upon the crest.
These salmon were just stupid youngsters, after all. What did they know of life, compared to a wise, travelled, adventurous frog?
"That's just a stupid myth. No matter how much I shout, nothing ever happens to me -"
Beneath the waves, as the fish scattered, there was a swift dark swirl. Drawn from his lair the great grey eel lunged up from below even as Frog spoke, deadly jaws open wide. He engulfed the frog and was gone.
Far up the river, under the eaves of the forest, there lies a small green pool, where the water-lilies grow and the yellow flags of the iris nod in the shallows. There are flies in the summer, and snails when it rains, and crunchy pink worms in the cool mud. Another frog is living there now. It is a good place, for a frog. "Nothing ever happens to me," says the frog, and he is content.