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Near the swamp there stood an old hollow willow tree, so broken by storms that the woodcutter came and carried off all but the stump. It was this very stump that began the trouble with the Frog family, for when Father Frog first climbed upon it he looked into the water and saw the treasure. Gold! One, two, three; ten, twenty, thirty; he could count no longer, but there they lay, millions of pieces of pure gold, and all his as they rested in the pond by the stump. The air was soft with spring and the sky thick with stars, and their reflections shone in the water with a golden flicker. It was this star-gold Frog counted as his, swelling with pride and croaking to himself over it, night after night when the weather was fine.

»No one is more rich than I, than I, than I,« he rumbled over and over. »Mother shall make me a bag, a bag, a bag, for my golden ducats.«