蛤蟆的故事
The story of a frog
Long ago there was a little child his mother gave him a little bowl of milk and a piece of bread at noon every day. When the boy was sitting and eating these two kinds of food in the courtyard, a little frog would jump out from a wall seam and stretched its head into the bowl to drink milk. The child liked the little frog to have a meal with him very much. If the frog did not come out from the wall after he had put the bowl on the ground, he would call it: “Little frog, little frog, come out quickly to eat your bread and drink your milk.” Little frog came when hearing this. It drank the milk together with the little child.
In order to show his appreciation, the little frog brought all kinds of toys made of diamonds, pearls and gold to the child from its secret treasure-house. The child had the little frog for his friend and lived a happy life. He grew taller and became stout day after day.
Once, the little child took a little spoon and knocked gently on the head of the frog and said: “Little thing, you drink much more.” His mother heard this in her room and she came over and saw the little frog was drinking milk. So, she stepped on the little frog and it died. From then on, the little child had no little frog for company. He didn’t want to eat anything. His red face gradually became pale and his body became thinner and thinner. Before long the owl cried at night and the child was dead.
A little girl spun a line in the courtyard and she spread a blue silk scarf on the ground. A little frog jumped out from the wall seam and played on the scarf. Seeing this, the little girl was very glad. Soon, the little frog jumped away and walked back again. It put a little golden hat on the blue silk scarf. The little girl drove the frog away at once and wrapped up the golden hat with the silk scarf and put it into her pocket. Without the blue scarf, the little frog felt very sad. Jumping in the corner the little frog made efforts to bump its head against the wall. In a little while, it died. The little girl thought that she should not have picked up the little golden hat with the scarf. If she hadn’t done this, the little frog would still have taken out more treasure from its hole.