slightest sound, save the small pit-pat, pit-pat, 

 made by their hopping. There may have been 

 some kind of toad talk among them, but listen 

 never so closely, I could not catch a syllable 

 of it. 



Where did they all come from? How did 

 they find their way to this wet spot over the 

 hills and across the acres of this wide pasture? 

 You could walk over the field in the daytime 

 and have difficulty in finding a single toad ; but 

 here at night, as I lay watching, every few min- 

 utes one would hop past me in the grass ; or 

 coming down the narrow cow-paths in the faint 

 light I could see a wee black bunch bobbing 

 leisurely along with a hop and a stop, moving 

 slowly toward the pump to join the band of his 

 silent friends under the trough. 



Not because there was more food at the pump, 

 nor for the joy of gossip, did the toads meet here. 

 The one thing necessary to their existence is 

 water, and doubtless many of these toads had 

 crossed this pasture of fifteen acres simply to get 

 a drink. I have known a toad to live a year 

 without food, and another to die in three days 

 for lack of water. And yet this thirsty little 



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