"B" Is for Betsy Read Free Page B

box down on the pavement and opened the lid. Betsy stooped down and looked in the box. It was filled with water. Swimming in the water were what looked like two little gray fish.
    "What are you going to do with those fish?" asked Betsy.
    "They're not fish," said Billy, "they're tadpoles. I am going to give them to the teacher."
    "Oh!" said Betsy. "You'd better hurry before all the water leaks out."

    Soon Billy and Betsy reached Mr. Kilpatrick. He had a group of children around him. "Billy has tadpoles in a box," shouted Betsy.
    "Have you, Bill?" cried one the boys. "Let's see them," said another. "What are you going to do with them?"
    "Come along, come along," said Mr. Kilpatrick, as he hurried the little group across the street. "We don't want the tadpoles to be late for school."
    The whole group rushed into the classroom. "Look, Miss Grey," they cried, "Billy has brought some tadpoles." Billy felt very proud and important as he set the box down on Miss Grey's desk.
    "How lovely of you, Billy!" said Miss Grey.
    The children gathered around her as she opened the box. "Oh, look!" they cried. "One is bigger than the other." "What are you going to do with them, Miss Grey?"
    Miss Grey took a large glass bowl from the shelf in the corner and poured the contents of the box into the bowl. "Now," she said, "we'll add some water and put them on the windowsill. Something very interesting will happen to these tadpoles. We will watch them grow every day."
    "We should name them," said Betsy.
    "Oh, yes!" cried the children.
    "Let's call the little one Wiggle," said Billy.
    "Yes," said the children, "let's call him Wiggle."
    "And the big one can be Waggle," said Ellen.
    So the tadpoles were named Wiggle and Waggle, and the children were delighted.
    Every morning they crowded around the bowl to see how the tadpoles were growing. One morning when Betsy reached school she ran to the windowsill. "Oh, Miss Grey," she cried, "something has happened to Waggle. He has two little bumps on each side of his tail." The children came running to look at Waggle. He had, indeed, two little bumps on each side of his tail.
    When school began, Miss Grey told the children that the two little bumps were going to be Waggle's legs and that they would grow larger and larger.
    "Will Waggle get any more legs?" asked a little boy.
    "You wait and see," said Miss Grey.
    "I think he will," said Ellen.
    "I do too," said Billy.
    Sure enough, some time later, two more little
bumps appeared and Waggle began to grow two front legs. Wiggle was very busy growing his back legs and trying to catch up with Waggle.
    While the tadpoles were growing their legs, the children were busy learning about the Indians. They learned that there were some Indians who had lived in wigwams made of the skins of animals and some who had lived in wigwams made of birch bark. Miss Grey also told them of Indians who had lived in caves cut in the side of the rocks. The children spent days at the sand table, building an Indian village. They decided to build a wigwam village at one end of the table and a cave village at the other end. They built the wigwam village first. They made the little wigwams of twigs covered with brown paper. They brought little dolls, which they colored with paint.
    Betsy thought the Indian village was beautiful. There was even a forest. The trees were made of pieces of sponge painted with green paint. In the middle of the forest there stood a little toy deer. "Because," said Billy, "if there isn't any game the Indians will starve." Billy had learned that animals that are hunted are called "game." He felt very big when he used
    this new word because the other children thought that game was just something that you played and sometimes won and sometimes lost.
    One morning when the children looked in the bowl to see how Wiggle and Waggle were growing, Waggle looked very strange indeed. "Waggle has lost almost all of his tail," cried Betsy.
    "Yes," shouted the children, "look at