The Real Charlie Bear

July 3, 1968

“What are those big black dots on the lily leaves?” asked little Charlie Bear as he and his friend Danny Deer were playing at the edge of a forest pond.

“Those are my eggs,” answered Mrs. Frog. She had been resting under a rock near the two forest children. When she heard them asking about her eggs, she hopped out to talk to them. “They are going to be little pollywogs.”

“Pollywogs! What are they?” asked Danny.

“They’re round black wigglys that swim in the water. When they grow up, they’ll be like me,” Mrs. Frog told the two children.

As they stood there looking at the eggs, Mr. Fish swam by and ate one of the eggs.

“Look! He ate one of your eggs!” cried little Charlie.

Mrs. Frog just looked at the pond where there were so-o-o-o many eggs and said, “That’s all right. I put too many eggs in the pond. I know the fish like them.”

Then she went back under the rock where it was cool and dark.

Little Charlie and Danny ran through the woods to the Bear’s house where they saw papa Charlie working in the garden.

Little Charlie called out, “We found some eggs in the pond—they’re going to be wiggly pollywogs!”

“And the wiggly pollywogs will turn into frogs,” said papa Charlie as he scratched his left ear.

Little Charlie and Danny went to tell their forest friends about the eggs that would turn into pollywogs and grow up to be frogs.

A few days later when little Charlie and Danny were playing near the pond, they saw the round black pollywogs with wiggly tails. They were nibbling at the edge of the lily leaves.

“There’re millions of ’em!” called out Danny Deer. “Are they all going to be frogs?”

Mr. Fish heard Danny and said, “Not all of them. They taste good. Yum. Yum,” he said as he gobbled two little pollywogs and swam away.

“I don’t like Mr. Fish to eat the pollywogs,” said little Charlie.

Danny agreed, “I don’t either.”

As they watched the little black pollywogs with the wiggly tails, another Mr. Fish swam by and took two more pollywogs with him.

Little Charlie and Danny stirred the water with sticks to scare the fish away. But it didn’t do any good. In another minute another fish came and took two more pollywogs.

The forest children went to tell papa Bear that the fish were eating all the pollywogs. When he heard their story, he explained, “If Mr. Fish and his friends don’t eat some of the pollywogs, they will all turn into frogs. Then so many frogs would go hoppety-hoppety-hop-hop all through the forest, there wouldn’t be enough room for us Bears and Deers.”

Little Charlie and Danny looked at each other and said, “Oh! What would we do?”

Papa Bear told the children that all the pollywogs would not grow up to be hoppety-hoppety-hop-hop frogs.

Little Charlie scratched his head and said, “But papa, how do the fish know how many pollywogs to eat?”

Papa Bear laughed and said, “Oh, little Charlie, I don’t think the fish know. They just eat when they’re hungry. That’s the way God made them.”

“Well,” said Danny Deer, “I hope they don’t eat all of Mrs. Frog’s children.”

“Why don’t you go back to the pond and ask Mrs. Frog about it?” said papa Bear.

So little Charlie and Danny ran back through the woods to the pond.

“Mrs. Frog! Mrs. Frog!” called little Charlie. “The fish are eating your little pollywogs!”

Mrs. Frog hopped out from under her rock and said, “Oh, I know. But look over there.”

She pointed to the shallow water near the edge of the pond. There were little black pollywogs swimming in and out among the lily leaves.

“See,” said Mrs. Frog, “there are still plenty of my little children. Some of them will grow up to be big frogs like me.”

Little Charlie looked very carefully at one of the pollywogs.

“Why, Mrs. Frog!” he cried. “That one has little legs!”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Frog. “First they grow little legs, and then their tails get shorter and shorter, until one day they can hop right out of the water.”

“Can they say ribbit, ribbit?” asked Danny.

“Not yet,” said Mrs. Frog. “But just you wait.”

Little Charlie and Danny sat on a big rock and watched the little pollywogs wiggle through the water.

Then little Charlie said, “Danny, I think I like the pollywogs better than the fish.”

“I do too,” said Danny. “But I guess the fish have to eat something.”

Just then Mr. Fish poked his head out of the water.

“That’s right!” he said. “And I’m getting hungry again!”

“Oh, no you don’t!” cried little Charlie.

But before he could say another word, Mr. Fish had disappeared under a lily leaf.

Danny laughed and said, “Come on, Charlie. Let’s go home before Mr. Fish gets hungry enough to eat us!”

And the two little forest children ran off through the woods, laughing all the way.

Behind them, Mrs. Frog sat on her rock in the sunshine.

“Ribbit! Ribbit!” she called.

And down in the pond, the little pollywogs just wiggled and wiggled their little tails.