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Updated: June 21, 2025
Parrots peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the airy woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living gems upon the bark, gaudy finches flitted and chirruped, butterflies of every size and color hovered over the topmost twigs, innumerable insects hummed from morn till eve; and when the sun went down, tree-toads came out to snore and croak till dawn.
A spring evening, say, some soft sweet odours blowing as they were tonight, the dark trees bending down, or the twilight angelically silver, hyacinth, orange, some soothing murmurs of the wind; some faint chirping of the tree-toads or frogs and then your girl. Dear God! Could anything be finer than that? Was anything else in life worth while?
Only I ain't got no more light-wood," he finished quaintly, "I got to quit." There was another silence while the tree-toads sang. Then the man held out his hand, hardened and warped with the unceasing toil of those tragic years. "Good-bye, Tharon," he said, "I wisht Jim Last was here. With him gone Lost Valley's in Courtrey's hand an' no mistake.
I don't know if they have tree-toads here, but I could find out which is north and south that way if they have." "Blimy, if we don't listen and see if we can 'ear 'em s'ying 'polly voo Fransay' in the trees!" said Tennert. "But a feller could never get into France that way," said Tom. "'Cause he'd have to cross the battle line.
The millions of pines and redwoods that covered the flanks of the mountains were absolutely still. No wind was stirring in their needles. But the chorus of tree-toads, dry, staccato, was as incessant as the pounding of the mill. Far-off thousands of miles, it seemed an owl was hooting, three velvet-soft notes at exact intervals.
Ask those who spend their time in the open air, the farmer, the sailor, the soldier, the walker; ask the birds, the beasts, the tree-toads: they know, if they will only tell. The farmer diagnoses the weather daily, as the doctor a patient: he feels the pulse of the wind; he knows when the clouds have a scurfy tongue, or when the cuticle of the day is feverish and dry, or soft and moist.
And the little, nocturnal censers of jessamine, of honeysuckle, of linden, continued to throw into the air exquisite puffs to intoxicate them; the darkness that enveloped them seemed more and more caressing and soft; in the silence of the village and of the country, the tree-toads gave, from moment to moment, their little flute-note, which seemed a very discreet love call, under the velvet of the moss; and, through the black lace of the foliage, in the serenity of a June sky which one thought forever unalterable, they saw scintillate, like a simple and gentle dust of phosphorus, the terrifying multitude of the worlds.
"Good for Hugh!" cried Phil. "Just the same with me, Hugh. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside my head, like the tree-toad." "You ARE like a tree-toad!" said Gerald. "That is the resemblance that has haunted me, and I could not make it out, because as a rule tree-toads are not fuzzy. I thank thee, Jew I mean Hugh for teaching me that word. My brother, the tree-toad! Every one will know whom I mean."
The moon rose in an unclouded sky over the dark tree-tops east of the camp; the crickets began to chirp in the thicket across the brook; sounds like the rapid shaking of a billiard-ball in a resonant wooden box came from nocturnal birds or tree-toads hidden in the depth of the forest; and the teeming life of the tropical wilderness, frightened into silence for a time by the uproar of battle, took courage from the stillness of night, and manifested its presence by chirps, croaks, and queer, unfamiliar cries in all parts of the encircling jungle.
It comes in with no Lord Mayor's Day, and blows no trumpets, and bends no triumphal arches to grace its entree. Few new voices in the tree-tops hail its advent. No choirs of tree-toads fiddle in the fens.
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