United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Being of an adventurous nature, however, he soon hopped out of his pool and began to travel, when a big bird came along and seized him in its beak and started to fly away with him to its nest. When high in the air, the frog wriggled so frantically that he got loose and fell down, down, down into a small hidden pool on the tableland of the Yips.

"If it is true that anyone came to our country to steal your diamond dishpan," said one of the Yips to Cayke, "it must have been a bird, for no person in the form of a man, woman or child could have climbed through these bushes and back again."

But on top live the Yips, and although the space they occupy is not great in extent, the wee country is all their own. The Yips had never up to the time this story begins left their broad tableland to go down into the Land of Oz, nor had the Oz people ever climbed up to the country of the Yips.

"We will do that with pleasure," cried the Yips and at once they turned and began to climb up the steep mountain, feeling they had had quite enough of this unsatisfactory adventure. Cayke the Cookie Cook did not go with them, however. She sat on a rock and wept and wailed and was very miserable. "Well," said the Frogman to her, "I will now bid you good-bye.

No one answered this question, but after a period of silence one of the Yips said: "We know what is here, on the top of this flat hill, and it seems to us a very pleasant place; but what is down below we do not know. The chances are it is not so pleasant, so we had best stay where we are." "It may be a far better country than this is," suggested the Cookie Cook.

Now this pool, it seems, was unknown to the Yips because it was surrounded by thick bushes and was not near to any dwelling, and it proved to be an enchanted pool, for the frog grew very fast and very big, feeding on the magic skosh which is found nowhere else on earth except in that one pool.

The bramble bushes and cactus plants were very prickly and uncomfortable to the touch, so the Frogman quickly commanded the Yips to go first and break a path, so that when he followed them he would not tear his splendid clothes. Cayke, too, was wearing her best dress and was likewise afraid of the thorns and prickers, so she kept behind the Frogman.

You go on and I'll get up there as soon as I can," answered Jonathan, and he went off to talk to his platoon sergeant while his friend strolled off to the villa. When he was going up the road to Ypres an hour later, he met an orderly on horseback. "Excuse me, sir, I don't think the road's extry nice now," he said. "They're dropping some heavy stuff into Yips again." Jonathan smiled.

He knew nothing of the rest of the world, but it was reasonable to believe that there were more people beyond the mountain where he now lived than there were Yips, and if he went among them he could surprise them with his display of wisdom and make them bow down to him as the Yips did.

But now, since the mighty Frogman had decided to undertake the journey, several of the Yips who were young and daring at once made up their minds to go along; so the next morning after breakfast the Frogman and Cayke the Cookie Cook and nine of the Yips started to slide down the side of the mountain.