“Croak! Croak! Croak!” sang the frog one fine summer evening.

“Really,” he thought, “I have a very fine voice,” and the fishes putting their heads out of the water thought so too. But fishes have no voice at all, so perhaps that was why they thought the singing of the frog so wonderful. Then, too, he was their next-door neighbor, and the doings of next-door neighbors are sometimes thought more wonderful than the doings of persons at a distance—though at other times it may be just the other way about.

Froggie was very proud of his voice, and as he knew the fishes were proud of it too, he thought he would be sure to charm the world with his singing. So he set off across the fields and sang to the little field-mouse and the mole.

But the field-mouse thought her own shrill note far finer than Froggie’s coarse croaking, and did not pay much attention to him—in fact her attention was very much taken up with a beautiful nest she had made of grass, to keep her little ones warm and dry; while blind mole did not even put his head above the ground to hear the singing, he was so busy burrowing tunnels and making his wonderful fortress.

Froggie left them in disgust, and journeyed on till he came to a garden.

“Surely,” he thought, “in this beautiful place my singing will be welcome.”

But no one paid any attention to Froggie there; the bees were too busy gathering nectar and pollen from the flowers to make honey and bee bread, to feed the young bees at home in the hive.

The summer was going fast and they knew they had also to get in store for the winter, so they had no time to pay attention even to the finest singing; while the bumble bee was buzzing away as fast as he could to get back to his nest on some mossy bank.

The butterflies had only a little while to live; and perhaps the only thing they were thinking about, besides sipping some sweet juices from the flowers, was where to find a nice leaf on which to lay some eggs, so that when the little caterpillars were hatched they should have something to eat. The caterpillar was just spending his life eating as much as he could, so that he could turn into a beautiful moth by and by, and fly about in the evening.

The snail was going along very slowly, it is true, but as quickly as he could, only thinking of finding some safe spot where a thrush could not find him and break open his shell and eat him up. As for the spider, his one care was to catch a passing fly or daddy-long-legs and make a good meal.

Even the flowers themselves did not pay any attention to poor Froggie. Their own bright colors, they thought, were finer than any singing. Besides, they were wondering whether the sunshine would last long enough to ripen their seeds, so that they could come up again as flowers next year.

So in the evening Froggie hopped all the way back to his native pond, where he found a brown bird singing a most beautiful song. It was the nightingale.

“Really,” thought Froggie, “I am no singer after all!”

But one of the little fishes who saw his disappointment still thinks he has a wonderful voice.