Charley soon found a fat little slug, which he brought to the toad; and he at once ate it from his hand.
"I"ll find you something else, old boy;" and Charley soon found a fly, which was snapped up by the toad in a twinkling.
"What beautiful bright eyes he has!" said Jack.
"Yes; and he makes good use of them, too. Didn"t you notice how quickly he darted out his tongue after the fly?--I say, Mr. Toad, I believe you are growing out of your skin."
"What do you mean, Charley?"
"Don"t you see he has grown so much lately that his skin is very tight, and it is looking dull. He"ll soon cast it off. It will split down his back, and then he will draw his legs out of it.--And you"ll have a nice new suit complete, won"t you, old Toady?"
"I think frogs are very interesting creatures too," said Tom.
"So they are," said Charley. "I often stand by our pond down there and watch them. The pond is in a damp part of the garden; just what frogs like. In the spring there"s a lot of that spotted, jelly-looking stuff, which is the frogs" sp.a.w.n, or eggs, about the pond.
"By-and-by, in about a month or so, a tadpole comes out of the egg.
There are swarms of them wriggling about the water, with heads and bodies and tails, but no legs. In about six weeks more the legs begin to grow, and gradually the tadpole changes into a frog. See what a number of young frogs there are hopping about here on the edge of the pond!
They are just out of their tadpole stage. They"ll eat just what toads eat, so they do no harm in a garden."
"I think I"ll take some home with me and put them into the little pond in grandpapa"s garden," said Jack; "for I shall like to watch them growing."
So Jack caught a few carefully, and tied them loosely in his pocket handkerchief.
"Well," said Tom, "I think we must say good-bye, Charley; it"s about time for us to go home."
"We must not forget the box of birds" eggs; and thank you," said Jack.
"No," said Charley; "I"ll fetch the box and go home part of the way with you. It"s a very fine evening for a walk."
VIII.
_A TALK WITH AUNT LIZZIE._
"I can show you the spot where the hyacinth wild Hangs out her bell blossoms of blue, And tell where the celandine"s bright-eyed child Fills her chalice with honey-dew,-- The purple-dyed violet, the hawthorn and sloe, The creepers that trail in the lane, The dragon, the daisy, and clover-rose, too, And b.u.t.tercups gilding the plain."
EDWARD CAPERN.
After the boys had started for Charley Foster"s, the little girls went upstairs into what was once the nursery, where Tom and Katey kept all their toys and books and learned their lessons; in fact it was still the children"s room.
Katey showed her cousins her various belongings, and said, "I"m afraid I have not anything so pretty to show you as Tom"s birds" eggs. I thought I would make a collection of wild flowers and leaves, and press them and fasten them on to paper. So I began with the leaves of the forest trees, and here they are."
The children looked through the sheets, on which were pressed the leaves of the oak, the elm, the birch, the willow, and many others besides, all so different in shape.
"The _leaves_ are very well," said Katey, "but not the _flowers_. I soon left off pressing them, for the poor flowers looked so wretched, so unlike the living ones, that I did not care to go on."
"I have felt just the same about some of the things in the museums in London," said Mary. "They may interest grown-up people, but not us. They are so dried and withered, that they don"t give you much of an idea of what they were in life. Who would ever guess what a man was like by seeing a mummy? and some of the things are no better than mummies."
"I am very fond of flowers," said Katey: "they look lovely in their own places where they grow, but just like mummies, as you say, dried up and stuck upon paper."
"I"ll tell you what: we are going to have tea on the lawn, and after tea we"ll ask mother to show us some sketches she has made of wild flowers.
Now they do give you a real notion of the flowers themselves."
Katey went to the window, and said, "Oh! there is Sarah bringing out the table for tea already. Let us go downstairs into the garden."
So they all went down to watch Sarah lay the cloth, and put the bread and b.u.t.ter and cake on the table, then the milk and sugar, and last of all she brought the teapot.
"Here comes Aunt Lizzie," said Annie; and all the children joined in the request that when tea was over she would show them her paintings of flowers.
"To be sure I will," she said; "and we will look at them out of doors as soon as the tea-table is cleared."
"I _do_ like having tea out of doors," said Annie; "we can never have it in London, however hot it is."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TEA ON THE LAWN.
_Page 82._]
"We cannot have it for very long in the country either," said Aunt Lizzie, "because our weather is so changeable. Sometimes we have cold winds with bright sunshine, or it rains, or the gra.s.s is damp. Still, during the long summer days we can frequently manage it; but it is not always summer even in the country."
"Do the woods seem very dreary to you in the winter, aunt?"
"No; I have known and loved them all my life, and they have a very different look in winter from what they have in summer."
"But they look so bare when the leaves are gone," said Annie.
"Yes; but you can see the shapes of the trunks and branches, down to the little twigs. You can tell the name of the tree from its skeleton, for each has its own form--the st.u.r.dy oak, the stiff poplar, the drooping willow, and the elegant silver birch. You should see them after a fall of snow. Each tree bears the weight of snow after a different fashion--like itself.
"In fact the woods during a bright hard frost are as good as Fairyland.
The brown dead oak leaves lying on the ground are fringed all round the edges with what looks like small diamonds sparkling in the sun. The frost takes every blade of gra.s.s, every twig and straw, and covers them with glittering crystal, and the whole air is clear and bright."
"We have some very beautiful days in winter," said Katey.
"Yes," said her mother; "calm, still, cloudless days--like midsummer, only of course colder. Not very often, it is true, but occasionally.
"I was walking on one such day till I came to what had been the private road leading to a gentleman"s house. The house itself was old and uninhabited, and the way to it was open. I walked along, and the trees on either side of it were bare, sparkling with frost and looking like other trees outside. Presently I came to a bend in the road, and saw that on both sides the s.p.a.ce was planted with evergreen shrubs and trees, and some of the trees were very tall. There were evergreen oaks, and pines, and firs, and plenty of the large-leaved ivy. It seemed as if I had walked from midwinter into midsummer. The bright sun was shining, the air was still, the sky a cloudless blue, and all the trees were green! I stood still to enjoy the sight, then I walked on for a very short way, when another sharp turn of the road brought me back to the wintry landscape of bare trees and more open country. That sight can be seen any winter now."
"I thought the country was dull in winter," said Mary.
"We have dull days, rainy days, and dark days; but then, although Nature is so quiet, she is still alive, and there are always changes going on.
"I knew a gentleman, who is dead now, but he lived to be very old. For a very great many years he always took one walk, at a certain hour every Sunday morning, all the year through. It was a very ordinary country walk--through the little town, up by the side of a fir plantation, along hedge-rows and scattered houses, over a stile into a long ploughed field generally planted with turnips for cattle, then over another stile, through winding lanes that led to farm-houses and at last came out into the public road.
"It interested him to watch the changes week after week--the first appearing of buds in the spring time, their growth during the week, then the bursting of the leaves. Then there was the white blossom of the black-thorn, which comes before the leaves; then that of the white-thorn or "May;" the silvery blossom of the willow tree; and the yellow catkins of the hazel, called by country children "lamb-tails." Then came the wild flowers of very early spring, till, as the weeks went on, their bloom was over with summer and autumn. Now the hedges were red with hips and haws. At last the leaves fell, and winter came once more.
"Besides all these changes there were the birds to notice--when they first came back to England after their winter absence, when the cuckoo was first heard, and many other things as well.