Produced by Heather Clark and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)
_Frontispiece_ "BADDY-BADDY!" _Page 142_]
AMONG THE POND PEOPLE
BY CLARA DILLINGHAM PIERSON Author of "Among the Meadow People," "Forest People," etc.
Illustrated by F. C. GORDON
NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
COPYRIGHT, 1901 BY E. P. DUTTON & CO.
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
JOHN W. S. PIERSON
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
Dear Little Friends:--When the ten Polliwogs came to spend a day withme, some two years ago, I promised to tell you stories of how they andtheir neighbors live in the pond. I wanted to tell the stories at once,but this is a busy world and story-telling is only play, so there weremany things to be done before I could sit down to my desk and hold mypen while the stories slid out of it onto paper. I wonder where all myten Polliwogs are now!
One cannot come to know pond people quite so well as those who live inthe forest or in the meadow, yet down in the shining water they live andbuild their homes and learn much that they need to know. And whereverpeople are living, and working, and playing, there are stories to befound. The pond people cannot be well or happy long away from the water,and you can only come to know them by watching the ponds and brooks. Ifyou do that and are very quiet, the Minnows will swim to where you are,the Mud Turtles will waddle out on the logs in the sunshine, and you mayeven see a Crayfish walking backward along the sand.
But if you should see a very large, black bug with fore legs which openand shut like jack-knives--then keep away from him, for that isBelostoma. Some time you may see him under the electric lights in thecity, for he likes to sprawl around there, and you can look at him onland, but let him alone.
Remember that the Dragon-Flies and many of their friends who seem to donothing but play in the sunshine, have lived long in the dusky pond, andthat this life in the air comes only after a long time of getting ready.Remember that if you pick up a Turtle or catch Minnows in a net, youmust not leave the Turtle on his back or keep any water-breathingpeople, like the Minnows, in the air. Watch them for a little while andthen let them go free.
And then remember, be sure to remember, this: that you are not to getacquainted with the pond people by tumbling into the water or by goinginto it with your shoes and stockings on. If you do that, your motherswill say, "We wish that Mrs. Pierson had never written about the pondpeople." And if they should say that, just think how I would feel!
Your friend, CLARA DILLINGHAM PIERSON.
STANTON, MICHIGAN, December 22, 1900
CONTENTS
PAGE THE BIGGEST FROG AWAKENS 1 THE DANCE OF THE SAND-HILL CRANES 13 THE YOUNG MINNOW WHO WOULD NOT EAT WHEN HE SHOULD 23 THE STICKLEBACK FATHER 33 THE CARELESS CADDIS WORM 45 THE TADPOLE WHO WANTED TO BE GROWN-UP 58 THE RUNAWAY WATER SPIDERS 72 THE SLOW LITTLE MUD TURTLE 83 THE DRAGON-FLY CHILDREN AND THE SNAPPING TURTLE 97 THE SNAPPY SNAPPING TURTLE 106 THE CLEVER WATER-ADDER 119 THE GOOD LITTLE CRANES WHO WERE BAD 129 THE OLDEST DRAGON-FLY NYMPH 143 THE EELS' MOVING-NIGHT 157 THE CRAYFISH MOTHER 169 TWO LITTLE CRAYFISHES QUARREL 178 THE LUCKY MINK 187 THE PLAYFUL MUSKRATS 200
Among the Pond People Page 1
