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Updated: May 12, 2025
Ten years ago there was naught but desolation where now the dandelion blooms and the voice of the tree-toad is heard in song. What do we see about us to-day? To the north of us the roof of Martin Howard's new barn glistens under the smiling noonday sun. Turning our gaze westward we behold the turrets of the palatial residence which neighbor Bales has erected in Razzle Street.
Pat, pat, pat went some object, now here, now there, among the furniture, or upon the walls and doors. On investigating the matter, he found that by some means his tree-toad had escaped from under the glass, and was leaping in a very lively manner about the room, producing the sound he had heard when it alighted upon the door, or wall, or other perpendicular surface.
Then we have nothing but Thomas's orchestra and the opera and the bright little theatre to console us for the loss of the frog and tree-toad concert and the tent-circus. Instead of plodding everywhere upon our own feet, which is so pleasant after running round upon them all day in town, we have nothing but cars and stages at hand to carry us to our own doors.
I once picked up a handful of them, and took them home. One grew up to be a charming little tree-toad, while some of his companions gave good promise, by their big awkward forms, of growing by and by into great bull-frogs. Do you know that flowers, as well as people, live in families? Come into the garden, and I will show you how.
We could not starve, or die of thirst, or faint for lack of sleep, since every bush was a bed in spite of the garapatos or wood-ticks, the snore of the tree-toad, the hoarse shriek of the macaw, and the shrill gird of the guinea- fowl. Every bed was thus free, and there was land to be got for a song, enough to grow what would suffice for two men's daily wants.
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a 'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest; And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow-crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."
A tree-toad chirped, loudest in all the world of stillness. Suddenly, without warning, the old man scraped back his chair. Bob's heart leaped. Was his one chance escaping him? Then to his relief Samuels spoke. The long duel of silence was at an end. "What might your name be?" inquired Samuels. "Orde." "I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?" "I'm just riding through."
Presently I hear the rush of the wind; and the cherry-and pear-trees rustle through all their leaves; and my paper is whisked away by the intruding blast. There is a quiet of a moment, in which the wind even seems weary and faint, and nothing finds utterance save one hoarse tree-toad, doling out his lugubrious notes.
It was high time for the little girl to be asleep; the robins had ceased their evening song in the maple; a tree-toad croaked monotonously outside, and a cricket was chirping certain confidences to the strange shadows that crept furtively everywhere in the yard and garden.
As I rambled on, I was suddenly seized with a fancy to climb a tree which stood by the roadside, and rest myself in a convenient notch which I observed between two of the limbs. I was soon seated in among the branches, with a canopy of leaves around and over me, feeling, in my still nervous condition, as I leaned my back against the mossy bark, like a magnified tree-toad in clothes.
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