POND AND STREAM
By
ARTHUR RANSOME
Author of "The Stone Lady"
NATURE BOOKS FOR CHILDREN
With illustrations by Frances Craine
LONDON
ANTHONY TREHERNE & COMPANY, LTD.
12, YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C.
1906
FOR MOLLY
CONTENTS.
I. About the Book
II. The Duck Pond
III. Stream and Ditch
IV. Lake and River
V. Our Own Aquarium
I
ABOUT THE BOOK
This is a book about the things that are jolly and wet: streams,and ponds, and ditches, and all the things that swim and wrigglein them. I wonder if you like them as much as they are liked bythe Imp and the Elf? You know all about the Imp and the Elf, doyou not? Those two small jolly children, who live in a littlegrey house in a green garden, and know the country and all thethings in it, almost as well as they know each other? The Imp andthe Elf love everything that is wet. They paddle in the streams,and build dams, and make waterfalls, and harbours, and sailboats, and do all the other things that every sensible personwants to do. And they love all the fishy people who live in thewater, and the beasts that crawl in the mud, and the birds thathop from stone to stone in the stream.
At home they keep a big glass tank on one of the bookcases in thestudy. And that is the aquarium. It is a kind of indoor wateryhome for the people whom they meet when they mess about in theduck-pond, or the becks that trickle down the valley. You knowwhat a beck is? The Imp and the Elf are north country children,and they would not understand you if you called the beck astream.
I will tell you about some of the guests who come to stay withus, and live in the watery tank. But they must be talked about atthe end of the book. For just now I want to tell you about theponds and streams from which they come, and the things that havehappened to us there, and all the other things that you will wantto know, and the things the Imp and the Elf, who are sitting sideby side in my big chair, say must be told to you.
II
THE DUCK POND
The Duck Pond is far away at the other side of the village. Wewalk a mile down over the fields, till we come to the village,and then we go through a little cluster of grey houses, past thetavern with the the picture of the prancing Blue Unicorn hangingout over the door, past the little grey church with the red tiledroof, past the farmyard by the smith's, where there is always alarge sized piebald pig grunting in the yard, and out again intothe fields. And then, on the left hand side of the road, we cometo three stacks, a horse trough, and a piece of commonland.
The common is rough and untidy, with clumps of gorse and thistlesand nettles. There is usually a spotty pony chewing the grass,and a goat with naughty looking horns and a grey beard. A tinydonkey with an eno