CHAP. XII—TOM GOES TO CATCH TADPOLES.

BYSOM liked tadpoles, they were so ugly

and so interesting; but he wanted very

—TyN

much to watch them turning into frogs, which
he thought were even uglier and more inter-
esting. He had often seen the black heads
and tails of the tadpoles wriggling about in
the dirty ditch-water, and then he had met
dear little ugly frogs, into which they had
erown. But he never happened to be at
hand just at the moment they changed from
the one into the other, and that was precisely
what he wished to see. He thought about it
a good long while, and then he told Archie—

“T’ll carry my tin can—you know which |
mean——down to the ditch, and fill it with
ditch-water. And then I’ll catch a lot of tad-
poles. And then I’ll carry them home and