Sap-Time
It was a little tree-toad that began it. In a careless moment he had come down to the bench that connects the big maple tree with the old locust stump, and when I went out at dusk to wait for Jonathan, there he sat, in plain sight. A few experimental pokes sent him back to the tree, and I studied him there, marveling at the way he assimilated with its bark. As Jonathan came across the grass I called softly, and pointed to the tree.
“Well?” he said.
“Don’t you see?”
“No. What?”
“Look—I thought you had eyes!”
“Oh, what a little beauty!”
“And isn’t his back just like bark and lichens! And what are those things in the tree beside him?”
“Plugs, I suppose.”
“Plugs?”