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"You ought to go to Grandfather Frog for this one, because Sticky-toes is really a Frog and not a Toad. But we are all cousins, and I don't mind telling you about Sticky-toes, or rather about his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, who was the first of the family ever to climb a tree. You see, it is all in the family, and I am very proud of my family, which is one of the very oldest."
If Sammy Jay was asleep in the far-away Old Pasture on the edge of the mountain, how could he be at the same time down in the Green Forest screaming? And if Sticky-toes the Tree Toad sat all night with his mouth shut tight, how could the voice of Sticky-toes be heard in an altogether different tree than the one Sticky-toes was spending the night in? Wasn't it enough to drive any one crazy?
That's my voice, yet it isn't mine, because I'm right here! How can I be here and over there too? Tell me that!" No one could tell him, and Sticky-toes continued to scold and sputter and swell himself up with anger. But everybody forgot Sticky-toes when they heard the voice of Blacky the Crow calling "Caw, caw, caw!" from the very same hemlock-tree.
Peter Rabbit listened with his mouth wide open. It was just the same kind of a story that Sammy Jay had told. What under the sun could be going on? Peter couldn't understand it at all. It certainly was very, very curious. He just must find out about it! After Sticky-toes the Tree Toad had poured out his troubles, Peter went back to the Old Briar-patch, more puzzled than ever.
Then he told Sticky-toes all about how Boomer the Nighthawk had said that he had seen Sammy Jay going to bed up in the far-away Old Pasture, and how that very night Sammy Jay's voice had been heard screaming down in the alders beside the Laughing Brook. Sticky-toes nodded his head. "I heard it," said he. "But how could Sammy Jay be down here if he went to bed way off there in the Old Pasture?
Every night Sticky-toes would hear what sounded like his own voice coming from a tree in which he was not sitting at all, and at a time when he was keeping his mouth shut as tight as he knew how. In fact, he had been so worried that for several nights he hadn't said a word, yet his neighbors had complained that he had been very noisy. He was getting so worried that he couldn't eat.
"Heard it last night and the night before that and before that and before that and before that, and I don't know what it means!" "Don't know what what means?" asked Peter Rabbit, whose curiosity would not let him keep still. "Hello, Long-ears! I don't know that it's any of your business!" said Sticky-toes.
Tell me that, Sticky-toes?" said Peter Rabbit. Sticky-toes shook his head. "Don't ask me! Don't ask me! Just tell me how it is that I hear my own voice when I don't speak a word," said Sticky-toes the Tree Toad. "What's that?" exclaimed Peter Rabbit. Then Sticky-toes poured out all his troubles to Peter Rabbit. They were very much like the troubles of Sammy Jay.
A few days later Peter happened over to the Smiling Pool for a call on Grandfather Frog. A mighty chorus of joy from unseen singers rose from all about the Smiling Pool. Peter knew about those singers. They were Hylas, the little cousins of Sticky-toes the Tree Toad. Peter sat very still on the edge of the bank trying to see one of them.
At last Peter found Sticky-toes the Tree Toad. He was muttering and grumbling to himself, and he didn't see Peter. Peter stopped to listen, which was, of course, a very wrong thing to do, and what he heard gave Peter an idea. Sticky-toes was quite upset. There was no doubt about it.
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