A SHARP LOOKOUT 



a failure of the ice crop on the river ; which, 

 indeed, others, who had not heard frogs 

 croak on the 3ist of December, had also 

 begun to predict. Surely, I thought, this 

 frog knows what it is about; here is the 

 wisdom of nature ; it would have gone 

 deeper into the ground than that if a severe 

 winter was approaching ; so I was not anx- 

 ious about my coal-bin, nor disturbed by 

 longings for Florida. But what a winter 

 followed, the winter of 1885, when the 

 Hudson became coated with ice nearly two 

 feet thick, and when March was as cold as 

 January ! I thought of my frog under the 

 hemlock and wondered how it was faring. 

 So one day the latter part of March, when 

 the snow was gone, and there was a feeling 

 of spring in the air, I turned aside in my 

 walk to investigate it. The matted leaves 

 were still frozen hard, but I succeeded in 

 lifting them up and exposing the frog. 

 There it sat as fresh and unscathed as in 

 the fall. The ground beneath and all about 

 it was still frozen like a rock, but apparently 

 it had some means of its own of resisting 

 the frost. It winked and bowed its head 

 when I touched it, but did not seem inclined 

 to leave its retreat. Some days later, after 

 197 



