While she was talking Ophelia came along with a frog on a shovel, which she proceeded to throw over the fence. “Come back with that frog,” said Migwan, “I need him in my business. Don’t you know that frogs eat the insects off the plants and we have that many less to kill?” Ophelia was standing in the strong sunlight, and Nyoda noticed that the circle of light hair on her head was still golden clear to the roots, although the ringlets were visibly growing.
“It must be a freak of Nature,” she concluded, “for it certainly isn’t bleached.”
Rest at Onoway House was again doomed to be broken that night. Nyoda had been peacefully sleeping for some time when she woke up at the touch of something cold upon her face. She started up and the feeling disappeared. She went to sleep again, thinking she had been dreaming. Soon the feeling came again, as of something cold lying on her forehead. She put up her hand and encountered a cold and knobby object. At her touch the thing—whatever it was—jumped away. She sprang out of bed and lit the lamp. The sight that met her eyes as she looked around the room made her pinch herself to see if she were really awake and not in the midst of some nightmare. All over the floor, chairs, table, beds, bureau and wash-stand sat frogs; big frogs, little frogs, medium-sized frogs; all goggling solemnly at her in the lamplight. She stared open mouthed at the apparition. Could this be another Plague of Frogs, she asked herself, such as was visited upon Pharaoh? At her horrified exclamation Gladys woke up, gave one look around the room and dove under the bedclothes with a wild yell. To her excited eyes it looked as if there were a million frogs in the room.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ophelia, sitting up in bed and staring around her sleepily.
“Don’t you see the frogs?” cried Nyoda.
“Sure I see them,” said Ophelia. “Aren’t you glad I got so many?”
“Ophelia!” gasped Nyoda, “did you bring those frogs in here?”
“Betcher I did,” said Ophelia, with pride, “and it took me most all afternoon to catch the whole sackful, too. What’s wrong?” she asked, as she saw the expression on Nyoda’s face. “Yer said they’d eat the bugs and yer made such a fuss about the mosquitoes last night that I brought the toads to eat them while we slept.” Nyoda dropped limply into a chair. The inspirations of Ophelia surpassed anything she had ever read in fiction.
If anybody has ever tried to catch a roomful of frogs that were not anxious to be caught they can appreciate the chase that went on at Onoway House that night. The first faint streaks of dawn were appearing in the sky before the family finally retired once more. Sufficient to say that Ophelia never set up another mosquito trap made of frogs.