74 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



A toad is a toad, and if he never got back to 

 the tree there would be one toad less, nothing 

 more. If anything more, then it is on paper, and 

 it is cant, not toad at all. And so, I suppose, 

 stones are stones, trees trees, brooks brooks — not 

 books and tongues and sermons at all — except 

 on paper and as cant. Surely there are many 

 things in writing that never had any other, any 

 real existence, especially in writing that deals 

 with the out-of-doors. One should write care- 

 fully about one's toad; fearfully, indeed, when 

 that toad becomes one's teacher ; for teacher my 

 toad in the old Baldwin has many a time been. 



Often in the summer dusk I have gone over 

 to sit at his feet and learn some of the things 

 my college professors could not teach me. I have 

 not yet taken my higher degrees. I was grad- 

 uated A. B. from college. It is A. B. C. that I 

 am working toward here at the old apple tree 

 with the toad. 



Seating myself comfortably at the foot of the 

 tree, I wait ; the toad comes forth to the edge of 

 his hole above me, settles himself comfortably, 

 and waits. And the lesson begins. The quiet of 

 the summer evening steals out with the wood- 



