THE WATER BABIES
on its wings a moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.
"No!" it said, "you cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly now, the king of all flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine and hawk over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like myself. I know what I shall do. Hurrah!" And he flew away into the air, and began catching gnats.
 BUT THE THING WHIRRED UP INTO THE AIR. |
"Oh! come back, come back," cried Tom, "you beautiful creature. I have no one to play with, and I am so lonely here. If you will but come back I will never try to catch you."
"I don't care whether you do or not," said the dragon-fly; "for you can't. But when I have had my dinner and looked a little about this pretty place, I will come back and have a little chat about all I have seen in my travels. Why, what a huge tree this is! and what huge leaves on it!"
It was only a big dock; but you know the dragon-fly had never seen any but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like; so it did look very big to him. Besides, he was very short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are, and never could see a yard before his nose, any more than a great many other folks, who are not half as handsome as he.
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