70 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



we marked him ; and for the next four years we 

 knew that he was himself alone. How many- 

 more years he might have lived in the hickory 

 for us all to pet, I should like to know ; but last 

 summer, to our great sorrow, the gypsy-moth 

 killers, poking in the hole, did our little friend to 

 death. 



He was worth many worms. 



It was interesting, it was very wonderful to me, 

 the instinct for home — the love for home I 

 should like to call it — that this humble little 

 creature showed. A toad is an amphibian to the 

 zoologist ; an ugly gnome with a jeweled eye to 

 the poet ; but to the naturalist, the lover of life 

 for its own sake, who lives next door to his toad, 

 who feeds him a fly or a fat grub now and then, 

 who tickles him to sleep with a rose leaf, who 

 waits as thirstily as the hilltop for him to call the 

 summer rain, who knows his going to sleep for 

 the winter, his waking up for the spring — to 

 such an one the jeweled eye and the amphibious 

 habits are but the forewords of a long, marvelous 

 life-history. 



This small tree-toad had a home, had it in his 

 soul, I believe, precisely where John Howard 



