XI 



THE TOAD 



DURING our summer acquaintance 

 with her, when we see her oftenest, a 

 valued inhabitant of our garden and a 

 welcome twilight visitor at our threshold, 

 we associate silence with the toad, almost 

 as intimately as with the proverbially 

 silent clam. In the drouthy or too moist 

 summer days and evenings, she never 

 awakens our hopes or fears with shrill 

 prophecies of rain as does her nimbler 

 .and more aspiring cousin, the tree-toad. 



A rustle of the cucumber leaves that 

 embower her cool retreat, the spat and 

 shuffle of her short, awkward leaps, are 

 the only sounds that then betoken her 

 presence, and we listen in vain for even 

 a smack of pleasure or audible expres- 

 sion of self-approval, when, after a ner- 

 vous, gratulatory wriggle of her hinder 

 toes, she dips forward and, with a light- 

 ning-like out-flashing of her unerring 

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