SOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS

IN THREE PARTS

PART FIRST

HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD SENT OUT A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION

Once the creatures of the forest held a great convention and appointed a

commission consisting of the most illustrious scientists among them to go

forth, clear beyond the forest and out into the unknown and unexplored

world, to verify the truth of the matters already taught in their schools

and colleges and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposing

enterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True, the

government had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked crew, to hunt for a

northwesterly passage through the swamp to the right-hand corner of the

wood, and had since sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr. Bull Frog;

but they never could find him, and so government finally gave him up and

ennobled his mother to show its gratitude for the services her son had

rendered to science. And once government sent Sir Grass Hopper to hunt

for the sources of the rill that emptied into the swamp; and afterward

sent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass, and at last they were

successful--they found his body, but if he had discovered the sources

meantime, he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by deceased,

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Sketches New and Old