The Washington herald., 1917-10-14
AUTO BUSDNSS like
GREAT Big FROGPOND
It's All Right for the Big Frogs. but
Woe to the Pollywogs.

1t Is a mighty big pond this auto
mobile business, and the creatures
that inhabit 1t. pollywogs aud their
descendants, for instance, have had
to accommodate themselves to large
increases in size. Survival depends on
fitness for the environment and hence
1t Is noticeable in this big body of
water that the pollywogs of yestsr-
year have changed tails for legs, real
pie-eater mouths for suckers and cul-
tivated vocal volume and skill where
there was none before. These are the
ones who hop nimbly about, cheerily
at home and happy whether on the
deep 5blue water, the lily pad or the
bank. They raise their voices in hap
BY chorus in the moonlight and at
other times and the "jug-er-rum" is
vocal only, not spirituous.
Where are the pollywogs?
Those who have not grown to frogs
have wriggled OF to shallow water
where the dirt and slime is. Being
dumb creatures they do not raise
their voices at the growing scarcity
of mud; perhaps they do not per-
ceive it, or II they do, they lack the
perception, necessary to discover the
reason. Certainly their eyes can
never reach above water to see the
stalking fate that smiles on straight
away hops and frowns on devious
wriggles. This 1t is that is cleaning
out the bacKwaters and driving the
pollywog by grim necessity, either to
seek smaller ponds or grow legs.
"Brrr-rr-ump! Brrr-rr-umpv'
The twin six frog on the rock Is
happy as he surveys the pond. 1t is
nice pond. There are fiies-a moist
click, a splash, and froggy is back
on his rock. winking his filmy eyes
slowly and meditatively over the
choice morsel whose progress inside
causes a few dubious heaves. 1t is
nice pond.
Peep"
The little four frog comes to the
top, all spraddled out with resting
after some exciting chase below. 1t
must have been successful, amusing.
and produced a tidbit. Those bullying
eyes are clear and bright with conf
dence, and the nostrils breathe the
fresh air with delight as froggy floats
at rest. 1t is a nice pond.
Beneath all this there are wigglings
Of Shiny tails attached to swollen
Shiny bodies. The fine mud goes up
in slow clouds after each frantic dash
from mud bank to mud bank, the
banks that are getting smaller and
smaller. Here and there a net may
descend and limp form of slime dis
appear from the pond in which 1t has
no right. Here and there a stalking
bird with red ribbed legs and a long
pink beak wades with dignity, and
uptilts its head to the sky in appre-
citation as another pollywog travels the
long road to extinction. 1t is a poor
poBd-for pollywogs.
such is the natural history of the
automobile dealer. Home, James"
croaks the frog after a good days
work, and Is driven to a not-so-little
and perhaps green home in the sub
urbs, where wife and the children
offer welcome under the porte cochere
and there's a vacuum cleaner to NOW
the rugs and a motor-driven lawn.
mower to manicure the front lawn
and the putting greens on the golf
caurse in the back pasture.
1t is the car that the pollywog takes,
to a fiat in Georgetown, where the
people above have a player piano.
where the bed is a table by day, and
the baby sleeps in the window box.
What has made one frog, the
other a pollywog? Purely a matter
of growth. Pollywogs are all right
in their place. Frogs have a bigger
place. This automobile industry has
grown to a mighty large size, and it
takes real big frog to swim in 1t.