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- THE TOAD
-
- by Hans Christian Andersen
-
- THE well was deep, and therefore the rope had to be a long one; it was heavy work turning the handle when
- any one had to raise a bucketful of water over the edge of the well. Though the water was clear, the sun
- never looked down far enough into the well to mirror itself in the waters; but as far as its beams could reach,
- green things grew forth between the stones in the sides of the well.
-
- Down below dwelt a family of the Toad race. They had, in fact, come head-over-heels down the well, in the
- person of the old Mother-Toad, who was still alive. The green Frogs, who had been established there a long
- time, and swam about in the water, called them "well-guests." But the new-comers seemed determined to
- stay where they were, for they found it very agreeable living "in a dry place," as they called the wet stones.
-
- The Mother-Frog had once been a traveller. She happened to be in the water-bucket when it was drawn up,
- but the light became too strong for her, and she got a pain in her eyes. Fortunately she scrambled out of the
- bucket; but she fell into the water with a terrible flop, and had to lie sick for three days with pains in her
- back. She certainly had not much to tell of the things up above, but she knew this, and all the Frogs knew it,
- that the well was not all the world. The Mother-Toad might have told this and that, if she had chosen, but
- she never answered when they asked her anything, and so they left off asking.
-
- "She's thick, and fat and ugly," said the young green Frogs; "and her children will be just as ugly as she is."
-
- "That may be," retorted the mother-Toad, "but one of them has a jewel in his head, or else I have the jewel."
-
- The young frogs listened and stared; and as these words did not please them, they made grimaces and dived
- down under the water. But the little Toads kicked up their hind legs from mere pride, for each of them
- thought that he must have the jewel; and then they sat and held their heads quite still. But at length they
- asked what it was that made them so proud, and what kind of a thing a jewel might be.
-
- "Oh, it is such a splendid and precious thing, that I cannot describe it," said the Mother-Toad. "It's
- something which one carries about for one's own pleasure, and that makes other people angry. But don't ask
- me any questions, for I shan't answer you."
-
- "Well, I haven't got the jewel," said the smallest of the Toads; she was as ugly as a toad can be. "Why
- should I have such a precious thing? And if it makes others angry, it can't give me any pleasure. No, I only
- wish I could get to the edge of the well, and look out; it must be beautiful up there."
-
- "You'd better stay where you are," said the old Mother-Toad, "for you know everything here, and you can
- tell what you have. Take care of the bucket, for it will crush you to death; and even if you get into it safely,
- you may fall out. And it's not every one who falls so cleverly as I did, and gets away with whole legs and
- whole bones.
-
- "Quack!" said the little Toad; and that's just as if one of us were to say, "Aha!"
-
- She had an immense desire to get to the edge of the well, and to look over; she felt such a longing for the
- green, up there; and the next morning, when it chanced that the bucket was being drawn up, filled with
- water, and stopped for a moment just in front of the stone on which the Toad sat, the little creature's heart
- moved within it, and our Toad jumped into the filled bucket, which presently was drawn to the top, and
- emptied out.
-
- "Ugh, you beast!" said the farm laborer who emptied the bucket, when he saw the toad. "You're the ugliest
- thing I've seen for one while." And he made a kick with his wooden shoe at the toad, which just escaped
- being crushed by managing to scramble into the nettles which grew high by the well's brink. Here she saw
- stem by stem, but she looked up also; the sun shone through the leaves, which were quite transparent; and
- she felt as a person would feel who steps suddenly into a great forest, where the sun looks in between the
- branches and leaves.
-
- "It's much nicer here than down in the well! I should like to stay here my whole life long!" said the little
- Toad. So she lay there for an hour, yes, for two hours. "I wonder what is to be found up here? As I have
- come so far, I must try to go still farther." And so she crawled on as fast as she could crawl, and got out
- upon the highway, where the sun shone upon her, and the dust powdered her all over as she marched
- across the way.
-
- "I've got to a dry place. now, and no mistake," said the Toad. "It's almost too much of a good thing here; it
- tickles one so."
-
- She came to the ditch; and forget-me-nots were growing there, and meadow-sweet; and a very little way off
- was a hedge of whitethorn, and elder bushes grew there, too, and bindweed with white flowers. Gay colors
- were to be seen here, and a butterfly, too, was flitting by. The Toad thought it was a flower which had
- broken loose that it might look about better in the world, which was quite a natural thing to do.
-
- "If one could only make such a journey as that!" said the Toad. "Croak! how capital that would be."
-
- Eight days and eight nights she stayed by the well, and experienced no want of provisions. On the ninth day
- she thought, "Forward! onward!" But what could she find more charming and beautiful? Perhaps a little
- toad or a few green frogs. During the last night there had been a sound borne on the breeze, as if there were
- cousins in the neighborhood.
-
- "It's a glorious thing to live! glorious to get out of the well, and to lie among the stinging-nettles, and to
- crawl along the dusty road. But onward, onward! that we may find frogs or a little toad. We can't do without
- that; nature alone is not enough for one." And so she went forward on her journey.
-
- She came out into the open field, to a great pond, round about which grew reeds; and she walked into it.
-
- "It will be too damp for you here," said the Frogs; "but you are very welcome! Are you a he or a she? But it
- doesn't matter; you are equally welcome."
-
- And she was invited to the concert in the evening- the family concert; great enthusiasm and thin voices; we
- know the sort of thing. No refreshments were given, only there was plenty to drink, for the whole pond was
- free.
-
- "Now I shall resume my journey," said the little Toad; for she always felt a longing for something better.
-
- She saw the stars shining, so large and so bright, and she saw the moon gleaming; and then she saw the sun
- rise, and mount higher and higher.
-
- "Perhaps after all, I am still in a well, only in a larger well. I must get higher yet; I feel a great restlessness
- and longing." And when the moon became round and full, the poor creature thought, "I wonder if that is the
- bucket which will be let down, and into which I must step to get higher up? Or is the sun the great bucket?
- How great it is! how bright it is! It can take up all. I must look out, that I may not miss the opportunity. Oh,
- how it seems to shine in my head! I don't think the jewel can shine brighter. But I haven't the jewel; not that
- I cry about that- no, I must go higher up, into splendor and joy! I feel so confident, and yet I am afraid. It's a
- difficult step to take, and yet it must be taken. Onward, therefore, straight onward!"
-
- She took a few steps, such as a crawling animal may take, and soon found herself on a road beside which
- people dwelt; but there were flower gardens as well as kitchen gardens. And she sat down to rest by a
- kitchen garden.
-
- "What a number of different creatures there are that I never knew! and how beautiful and great the world is!
- But one must look round in it, and not stay in one spot." And then she hopped into the kitchen garden.
- "How green it is here! how beautiful it is here!"
-
- "I know that," said the Caterpillar, on the leaf, "my leaf is the largest here. It hides half the world from me,
- but I don't care for the world."
-
- "Cluck, cluck!" And some fowls came. They tripped about in the cabbage garden. The Fowl who marched
- at the head of them had a long sight, and she spied the Caterpillar on the green leaf, and pecked at it, so that
- the Caterpillar fell on the ground, where it twisted and writhed.
-
- The Fowl looked at it first with one eye and then with the other, for she did not know what the end of this
- writhing would be.
-
- "It doesn't do that with a good will," thought the Fowl, and lifted up her head to peck at the Caterpillar.
-
- The Toad was so horrified at this, that she came crawling straight up towards the Fowl.
-
- "Aha, it has allies," quoth the Fowl. "Just look at the crawling thing!" And then the Fowl turned away. "I
- don't care for the little green morsel; it would only tickle my throat." The other fowls took the same view of
- it, and they all turned away together.
-
- "I writhed myself free," said the Caterpillar. "What a good thing it is when one has presence of mind! But
- the hardest thing remains to be done, and that is to get on my leaf again. Where is it?"
-
- And the little Toad came up and expressed her sympathy. She was glad that in her ugliness she had
- frightened the fowls.
-
- "What do you mean by that?" cried the Caterpillar. "I wriggled myself free from the Fowl. You are very
- disagreeable to look at. Cannot I be left in peace on my own property? Now I smell cabbage; now I am near
- my leaf. Nothing is so beautiful as property. But I must go higher up."
-
- "Yes, higher up," said the little Toad; "higher-up! She feels just as I do; but she's not in a good humor to-
- day. That's because of the fright. We all want to go higher up." And she looked up as high as ever she could.
-
- The stork sat in his nest on the roof of the farm-house. He clapped with his beak, and the Mother-stork
- clapped with hers.
-
- "How high up they live!" thought the Toad. "If one could only get as high as that!"
-
- In the farm-house lived two young students; the one was a poet and the other a scientific searcher into the
- secrets of nature. The one sang and wrote joyously of everything that God had created, and how it was
- mirrored in his heart. He sang it out clearly, sweetly, richly, in well-sounding verses; while the other
- investigated created matter itself, and even cut it open where need was. He looked upon God's creation as a
- great sum in arithmetic- subtracted, multiplied, and tried to know it within and without, and to talk with
- understanding concerning it; and that was a very sensible thing; and he spoke joyously and cleverly of it.
- They were good, joyful men, those two,
-
- "There sits a good specimen of a toad," said the naturalist. "I must have that fellow in a bottle of spirits."
-
- "You have two of them already," replied the poet. "Let the thing sit there and enjoy its life."
-
- "But it's so wonderfully ugly," persisted the first.
-
- "Yes, if we could find the jewel in its head," said the poet, "I too should be for cutting it open.'
-
- "A jewel!" cried the naturalist. "You seem to know a great deal about natural history."
-
- "But is there not something beautiful in the popular belief that just as the toad is the ugliest of animals, it
- should often carry the most precious jewel in its head? Is it not just the same thing with men? What a jewel
- that was that Aesop had, and still more, Socrates!"
-
- The Toad did not hear any more, nor did she understand half of what she had heard. The two friends
- walked on, and thus she escaped the fate of being bottled up in spirits.
-
- "Those two also were speaking of the jewel," said the Toad to herself. "What a good thing that I have not
- got it! I might have been in a very disagreeable position."
-
- Now there was a clapping on the roof of the farm-house. Father-Stork was making a speech to his family,
- and his family was glancing down at the two young men in the kitchen garden.
-
- "Man is the most conceited creature!" said the Stork. "Listen how their jaws are wagging; and for all that
- they can't clap properly. They boast of their gifts of eloquence and their language! Yes, a fine language
- truly! Why, it changes in every day's journey we make. One of them doesn't understand another. Now, we
- can speak our language over the whole earth- up in the North and in Egypt. And then men are not able to
- fly, moreover. They rush along by means of an invention they call 'railway;' but they often break their necks
- over it. It makes my beak turn cold when I think of it. The world could get on without men. We could do
- without them very well, so long as we only keep frogs and earth-worms."
-
- "That was a powerful speech," thought the little Toad. "What a great man that is yonder! and how high he
- sits! Higher than ever I saw any one sit yet; and how he can swim!" she cried, as the Stork soared away
- through the air with outspread pinions.
-
- And the Mother-Stork began talking in the nest, and told about Egypt and the waters of the Nile, and the
- incomparable mud that was to be found in that strange land; and all this sounded new and very charming to
- the little Toad.
-
- "I must go to Egypt!" said she. "If the Stork or one of his young ones would only take me! I would oblige
- him in return. Yes, I shall get to Egypt, for I feel so happy! All the longing and all the pleasure that I feel is
- much better than having a jewel in one's head."
-
- And it was just she who had the jewel. That jewel was the continual striving and desire to go upward- ever
- upward. It gleamed in her head, gleamed in joy, beamed brightly in her longing.
-
- Then, suddenly, up came the Stork. He had seen the Toad in the grass, and stooped down and seized the
- little creature anything but gently. The Stork's beak pinched her, and the wind whistled; it was not exactly
- agreeable, but she was going upward- upward towards Egypt- and she knew it; and that was why her eyes
- gleamed, and a spark seemed to fly out of them.
-
- "Quunk!- ah!"
-
- The body was dead- the Toad was killed! But the spark that had shot forth from her eyes; what became of
- that?
-
- The sunbeam took it up; the sunbeam carried the jewel from the head of the toad. Whither?
-
- Ask not the naturalist; rather ask the poet. He will tell it thee under the guise of a fairy tale; and the
- Caterpillar on the cabbage, and the Stork family belong to the story. Think! the Caterpillar is changed, and
- turns into a beautiful butterfly; the Stork family flies over mountains and seas, to the distant Africa, and yet
- finds the shortest way home to the same country- to the same roof. Nay, that is almost too improbable; and
- yet it is true. You may ask the naturalist, he will confess it is so; and you know it yourself, for you have seen
- it.
-
- But the jewel in the head of the toad?
-
- Seek it in the sun; see it there if you can.
-
- The brightness is too dazzling there. We have not yet such eyes as can see into the glories which God has
- created, but we shall receive them by-and-by; and that will be the most beautiful story of all, and we shall all
- have our share in it.
-
-