Told By: Jesus Cervantes
Legend Keeper/StoryTeller of Mexico
There once was a rabbit who could run very fast. He liked to go to the hilltop and brag to all the town about his swift speed. "I can run the fastest!" he would shout out loud.
Then Frog came along. Rabbit's loud boasting made him mad. He went up to rabbit and said, "No one wants to hear this racket! I will race you down to the pond, and I will win!"
"Lets race now!" said Rabbit. "No," said Frog. "You run outside on the ground a lot, and I do not. I need two days to practice."
Rabbit said that was fine. He would even let Frog choose where they would race. Frog said they should race in the tall swamp grass, from the hill down to the pond.
Frog went to count how many hops it took to get from the hill to the pond. Then he went back to his little brown house in the ground. He planned a trick.
One day of the race, Rabbit and Frog were set to go. Frog was about to play his trick. He had asked all his frog friends to hide in the thick swamp grass. The frogs were lined up, each frog one good leap from the next. The race began. Rabbit ran as fast as he could. Soon, at the bend in the road, he saw a frog jump out of the grass in front of him. After that, the next frog jumped out, then the next, all the way down to the pond.
Rabbit was thinking it was Frog who was always in front of him. So Rabbit ran faster and faster. In the end it was Frog who was waiting at the pond for Rabbit. Rabbit was running too fast to stop, he fell into the pond just as Frog shouted as loud as he could, "I am the fastest!"
And that was that.
