What Sukey Caught

1916

Marian Churchill Graves

Although Janet and Sukey had fished together many times and never caught a thing, they were not discouraged. Almost every Saturday they sat on the sixth step of the high back porch and fished in the rainwater barrel below.

"It's your turn now, Sukey," said Janet one day, as she pushed the branch of a tree that served for a pole into Sukey's limp hand. But Sukey, being a rag doll, did not grasp the pole as she should, and the pole — twine fish line, bent-pin hook, and all — slid off into the barrel. Besides, the sudden push upset Sukey's balance and she followed the pole into the water. Janet almost fell down the steps in her hurry to rescue her dear playmate, but the barrel was so deep that she could not reach the pole or Sukey. Billy Austin, who lived next door, came when he heard Janet's cry for help, and with his father's hoe soon pulled Sukey out.

"Oh, look, what's this funny thing?" called Janet as Billy dropped the doll on the grass. "Has Sukey caught a fish?"

"Why, it's a pollywog!" cried Billy. "Sam Martin had some around here in a pail last night and he must have put one in there. It's a little frog, you know."

Janet looked carefully at the shiny brown body on Sukey's skirt. It seemed to be all round head and long tail, with no legs. Two bright eyes near the front of the head looked almost too big for such a little pollywog.

"Oh, Billy, let's feed him and keep him here, will you?" begged Janet.

Billy put the pollywog in a glass jar full of cool water, and every day after that he and Janet added fresh water and fed the little fellow leaves and seaweed. They could see quite plainly through the glass walls, and one day they discovered that the pollywog was growing two pairs of tiny legs. Every day the legs grew larger, and soon he looked like a frog with a long tail. Then the tail grew shorter and shorter until it was almost gone.

Billy said that now they must carry the frog to a frog-pond, where he could get enough to eat. Both children would have liked to keep the little fellow, but they knew that he would be happier with his friends.

Janet and Sukey still fish in the rain-barrel, but they never caught another thing. Perhaps Sukey would rather keep dry than catch even a pollywog. — Rome, N. Y.