“Oh! listen to the bass chorus, will you?” he ejaculated. “Why, there must be a dozen huskies keeping time if there’s one. Oh! see that monster on the bank! Say, I can count three more big greenbacks sunning themselves on the mud near the edge of the water. Whew! but it makes my mouth water just to think of the delicious messes a fellow can pick up here any old day.”
Ralph laughed good-naturedly.
“Then consider yourself appointed official frog hunter for the crowd,” he told Tubby, whose eyes glistened at hearing the joyous news. “You can have just as many as you want to eat while up here. Somehow, I don’t seem to care much for frogs’ legs myself, nor does dad. When we hanker after chicken we get chicken, and if it’s fish we want, we go out for trout or bass; but the combination doesn’t appeal to us.”
“Thank you a dozen times, Ralph, for giving me the promise of a smashing good feast. I’m abnormally fond of them. When you ship a batch of frogs’ legs down to New York markets, how do you go after them? They jump so swift that it’s always hard for me to corral any. At home I use a short pole with two feet of line, and a red fly at the end, pushing close enough to dangle the said fly before the nose of Mr. Frog, who grabs it in a hurry.”
“Oh! we don’t bother with all that fuss up here,” explained Ralph. “I have a little Flobert rifle that I knock ’em over with. You could get a hundred in a morning without much trouble. I’ll lend it to you any time you want, Tubby.”
That completed the delight of the fat boy, who, in imagination, already saw himself feasting on his favorite dish to his heart’s content.
“It’s going to be lots of fun for Tubby,” remarked Andy, quizzically, “but all the same it’s bound to be death to the frogs.”
“Well, what good are the slippery things, except to serve as food for people, I’d like to know? As singers they’re a miserable failure, and all their lives, from the time they’re tadpoles up to when they weigh two solid pounds, they never do any particular good till they are served on the table, browned to a crisp, and making honest boys’ hearts send up their thanksgiving.”
“No use trying to convince Tubby about the sin of sacrificing things to satisfy his appetite,” laughed Rob. “He’s committed to the idea that everything was put on this earth for one great purpose, which was to cater to the wants of man.”
“Well, isn’t getting good and hungry one of man’s greatest troubles?” Tubby immediately demanded, triumphantly. “Hasn’t he been given dominion over all the fowls of the air, the fishes of the waters, and the animals that populate the woods in order to sustain his life? That’s my way of looking at it, so there you are.”