"I'm a wonderful cow And I don't know how Such wonderful things I do! I curl my horn On the cob of a corn And smile whenever I chew, I do, I smile whenever I chew!"
"And here is the corn cob I curled them on," she said, opening her mouth. And sure enough, there was the corn cob!
Now Wonderful-cow-that-never-was got queerer and queerer until the farmer thought her a little _too_ queer. She was very proud of her crumpled horns and tried to hook everyone on them. Once she tore the farmer's coat trying to hook him. And once she _did_ toss him up. She watched him in the air and all she said was "He's up now, but he'll come down some time." And bang! So he did!
Finally one terrible day, they tied her tight and cut off her horns. She was never the same afterwards. She couldn't hook any more. "I don't care about being queer any more," she said to her mother. And she wasn't. She stopped standing on her head. She never pulled off another ear. She never broke her tail again and of course she never curled her horns again. Because she hadn't any! "After all," she said, "it's wonderful enough just to be a cow and have four stomachs and chew cud and give milk and have a baby each Spring!" And that's what she's doing now!
She's a wonderful cow, And anyhow She does a wonderful thing! She wallows in mud, She chews her cud, And has a baby in Spring!
This story was worked out with a five-year-old boy. It is the result of his own summer experiences on a lake.
Once there was a little lake. And many things loved the little lake for its water was clear and smooth and blue when it was sunshiny, and dark and wavy and cross-looking when it was rainy. Now one of the things that loved the little lake was a little fish. He was a slippery shiny little fish all covered with slippery shiny scales. He lived in the shadow of a big rock near a deep, dark, cool pool. And when his wide-open shiny eye saw a little fly fall on the top of the water, he would flip his slippery, shiny tail and wave his slippery, shiny fins and dart out and up and--snap! he'd have the fly inside him! Then like a shiny streak he'd quietly slip back to the cool, deep, dark pool.
Another thing that loved the little lake was a spotted green frog. He too lived near the big rock. He would squat like a lump on the top in the sun, blinking his bright little eyes. Then splash! jump he would go, plump into the water. He'd keep his funny head with the little blinking, bright eyes above water while he'd kick his long, spotted, green legs and he'd swim across to another rock. At first he used to frighten the slippery shiny little fish when he came tumbling into the quiet water. But the spotted green frog never did anything to hurt the little fish so the slippery shiny little fish didn't mind him after all. But at night what do you think the spotted green frog did? He squatted on the rock with his front feet toeing in, like this, and he looked up at the far-away white moon in the far-away dark sky, and then he swelled and he swelled and he swelled his throat, and then he opened his wide, wide mouth and out came a noise. Oh, such a noise! "K-K-K-Krink!! K-K-K-Krank!!" All night the spotted frog swelled his throat and croaked at the moon.