“Because it was such fun; but they always made them hop well first. They’d begin by taking great long jumps, and then, as the boys hunted them, the jumps would get shorter and shorter, and they’d be so tired that it was easy to make them sit still on the piece of wood.”
“And when they had struck the wood, and driven it into the air, what did they do to the poor thing then?”
“Sent it up again.”
“And then?”
“Oh, they caught it—some of the boys did—caught it like a ball.”
“Have you ever done so?”
Dexter shuffled about from foot to foot, and looked at the prospect, then at the frog, and then slowly up at the clear, searching eyes watching him.
“Yes,” he said, with a sigh; “lots of times.”
“And was it to save the poor thing from being hurt by the fall on the hard ground!”
Dexter tried hard to tell a lie, but somehow he could not.