My good friends, imagine if you were to live at the bottom of a deep, dark well. What kind of world would you see?
There was a Little Frog who lived at the bottom of a deep, dark well. Now let us go down there and see what kind of world he had.
It was a very old well filled with shallow water at the bottom. The walls of the well were all covered with wet moss. When the Little Frog was thirsty, he drank a little bit of the well water, and when he was hungry, he ate some insects. When he was tired, he lay on a little rock at the bottom of the well and looked up at the sky above him. Sometimes he saw passing clouds. He was very happy and satisfied.
Now, the Little Frog had been living at the bottom of this old well since he was born. He had never been to the outside world. Whenever a bird or birds flew by and stopped at the edge of the well, the Little Frog always looked up and bragged, "Hello! why don't you come down here and play with me. It's so pleasant down here. Look, I have cool water to drink and countless insects to eat. Come down! At night I can watch the twinkling stars, and sometimes I can see the beautiful moon, too."
Sometimes the birds would tell the Little Frog, "Hi, Little Frog! You see, the outside world is much bigger and nicer. It's many times more beautiful than your little well at the bottom. " But the Little Frog would not believe them. "Don't lie to me, I don't believe there is any place that could be better than here. "
Gradually, all the birds began to dislike him They thought he was too stubborn and stopped talking to him.
The Little Frog could not understand why nobody would like to come down to his nice place.
One day, a yellow sparrow stopped by at the edge of the well. The Little Frog was so excited he greeted the sparrow and invited the sparrow eagerly. "Hello, Mr. Yellow Sparrow, how are you? Please come down to my most beautiful house." The yellow sparrow did not say a word and flew away. The next day the yellow sparrow came again and the same thing happened again. It went on for six days. On the seventh day, the yellow sparrow finally said, "Little Frog, may I show you the outside world?" But the Little Frog refused the offer.
Finally the yellow sparrow became angry. He flew down to the bottom of the well, picked up the Little Frog on his back, and flew out of the well.
"Oh!" the Little Frog exclaimed. "How is it that the outside world is so big!" He had been in the bottom of his dark well for so long that the bright sunshine made his eyes blink shut, and he could hardly open his eyes to see.
When he finally opened his eyes, he saw so many things around him. "Hey! Be careful! Don't hit this strange thing. What are all these green high and low things?" The yellow sparrow laughed happily: "Ha! ha! These are mountains and valleys. There are countless mountains in this world. The Himalayas, the Swiss Alps, the Rockies and... "
The Little Frog could not believe there were so many big mountains in the world. When they flew over the high mountains, the next view made the Little Frog even more surprised.
"What is this long, silvery, shiny view?"
"It is a river," the yellow sparrow replied.
"Then what is that huge, blue thing over there?"
"That is a sea," the yellow sparrow replied.
"That river and sea, how much water do they have? How much bigger are they than my well? They must hold a billion times more water than my well." The Little Frog began to realize how tiny his well was. "Let's go down, O.K. ?" The yellow sparrow put the Little Frog down on the ground and flew away.
The Little Frog jumped into the grass and saw many beautiful flowers of different colors. He had never seen such beautiful flowers and had never smelled such nice scents. He kept on going and went into a forest. In it he looked up and saw many tall trees. He looked down and found many different kinds of fruits that had fallen to the ground. He picked up an apple and tasted it. "Wow, so sweet !" Then he listened to the beautiful singing of the birds. The cute squirrels were jumping, the monkeys were swinging from branch to branch, and the antelopes were scampering speedily.
In the pond, the lotus flowers were dancing in the air, and the lotus leaves were floating on the water like umbrellas. There were many fish in the water.
"The outside world is so big, so wonderful, and beautiful!" The Little Frog finally cried out happily and jumped into the pond. He climbed up on a huge lotus leaf and enjoyed his new life there. The yellow sparrow came back and asked, "Little Frog! How's this outside world? Big? Beautiful?"
"Thank you very much. If you had not brought me out to see this world, I would never had known that there are such beautiful things that exist outside my well ." The Little Frog never tried to go back to his old well again.
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Last modified: 7 September 1996