After that they would ride on her back, or on their father's whenever they got tired.

And their parents began to take them on long trips up and down stream.

You see, their housekeeping being so simple, they didn't mind going away even for a couple of days at a time, and leaving the house to look after itself." "I don't think I'd like to be wet like that _all_ the time, even in summer," remarked the Babe, shaking his head thoughtfully.
"Oh, they weren't that.

They used to go ashore and, in spite of their ridiculously short legs, make most respectably long journeys through the woods to some other stream, pretending, I suppose, that the fish over there had a different flavor.

Sometimes, too, when they came upon a patch of smooth, mossy ground, they would have a wild romp, as if they had just been let out of school--a sort of game of tag, in which the father and mother played just as hard as the youngsters.