Once, a big fat frog and a lively little frog were hopping along together, when they had the misfortune to jump straight into a pail of fresh milk. They swam for hours and hours, hoping to get out somehow; but the sides of the pail were steep and slippery and death seemed certain.
When the big frog got exhausted, he lost courage. There seemed no hope of rescue.
“Why keep struggling against the inevitable? I can’t
swim any longer,” he moaned.
“Keep on! keep on!” urged
the little frog, who was still circling the pail. But the big
frog decided it was no use. “Little Brother, we may as well
give up,” he gasped,
“I’m going to quit
struggling.”
Now only the little frog was left. He thought to himself,
“Well, to give up is to be
dead, so I will keep on
swimming.”
Two more hours passed and the tiny legs of the determined little
frog were almost paralyzed with exhaustion. It seemed as if he
could not keep moving for another minute. But then he
thought of his dead friend, and repeated, “To give up is to
be meat for someone’s table, so I’ll keep on paddling
until I die-if death is to come-but I will not cease
trying-‘while there’s life there’s
hope!’”
Intoxicated with determination, the little frog kept on, around
and around and around the pail, chopping the milk into white
waves.
After a while, just as he felt completely numb and thought he was
about to drown, he suddenly felt something solid under him. To
his astonishment, he saw that all his kicking had changed the
consistency of the milkd he'd been swimming in and he was
resting on a lump of butter
And so the successful little frog leaped out of the milk pail
to
freedom.