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a certain place lived a young housewife, whose name was Lidushka. One day, as she was washing linen in a rivulet, a large, swollen frog swam towards her, looking so ugly that Lidushka, alarmed at the sight of it, jumped back a pace or two. The ugly looking frog approached nearly to the spot where Lidushka had just been washing, spread its legs out on the top of the water, and opening its mouth as if it wished to say something, stood perfectly still.

"You great, fat frog," said Lidushka to herself; "what do you want here, and why do you open your mouth at me so?"

She then threw a piece of linen that she happened to have in her hand at the frog, wishing to drive it away that she might go on with her washing. The frog dived, and before Lidushka had time to look about her, it reappeared at the other side of the water, and began