From my childhood. The puddle

It was a grand puddle. It always appeared after heavy rains. Sometimes it was too large to get out from the gates. Then Mum put some planks to cross it.  The puddle was interesting to play in. It was alive for me. I used to spend hours and hours building small ditches and weirs. A lot of little creatures crowded there. I would connect the ditches into pools as if they were rooms for tadpoles. I imagined tadpoles visiting each other, speaking and having a good time. Days passed. Puddles dried out. I wondered where those little beasts disappeared. I was a little girl. About four, I suppose. Once I was wandering roundabout the pool busy with seeking for the tadpoles. A passing by woman stopped and asked: “Are you a boy or a girl?” I had never seen that woman before and have never seen her since that moment. So striking was her question that I gave up playing in my dearest puddle forever.