1 86 Next to the Ground 



white roses and honeysuckle, another in the 

 plum thicket, and a third in a hedge-row peach 

 tree, overrun with a rampant muscadine. The 

 garden was big, and not very trim, really half 

 orchard, with a touch of playground. The 

 mockers policed it vigorously, never letting 

 dog or cat go through it. There was another 

 and shyer colony of them, in the very back 

 of the orchard, nesting in some very slim, tall 

 cherry trees, yet haunting and harboring in 

 the orchard hedgerow. All of them sang by 

 day, but with such exquisite mimicry it was 

 hard to distinguish the singing from that of 

 the birds the singers mocked. At night they 

 sang more clearly, more constantly, flooding 

 the still world with pure melody, in rippling 

 tricksy cascades. Love and strenuous rivalry 

 lay under the singing. Each tried to outdo 

 all the rest in the ears of his brooding mate. 



June had a clown's note — the big double- 

 bass bullfrog's: " Jug-o-rum ! Jug-o-rum ! 

 Brek-ke-ke-coax ! Brek-ke-ke ! Jug-o-rum- 

 um-um! Ru — um! " Though they bellowed 

 something earlier, Joe always set them men- 

 tally to lead the orchestra of June. He specu- 

 lated sometimes as to what a fine fright it 

 would give a stranger — say a man from Mars 

 — to find himself alone at night in a swamp 

 where bullfrogs were plenty, and laughed to 

 think of the Martian's relief when he came to 



