“Tina admired her big brother and watched carefully as he had advised, so she was the first to spy a swift animal with a bushy tail. What was it? How it did jump—almost as fast and high and far as a toad!
“‘Run, Tina, Run! It’s a squirrel!’ shouted Tibby, as the tiny toads stood petrified with fear.
“The squirrel soon had the smallest and weakest of the family and that left four to wander along heart-broken over their loss.
“‘I fear we shall end like the “ten little niggers that sat on a gate,”’ wailed Tibby, the poem of those unlucky little black children appealing to him at the moment.
“‘Tibby, will you or I be the last one to swing on the gate and then fall off, so there was none?’ mournfully asked Tina.
“Suddenly, before Tibby could reply, there was a happy cry and two fat toads appeared who greeted the four baby toads.
“‘Oh my darlings—it is Mamma Spot! Don’t you know me?’
“Then Speckles puffed up proudly as he saw young Tibby and the baby brother, and said, ‘Tib, my son, I am glad to see you have brought the children safely home.’
“What became of the other tads in the puddle I never could find out, but the four we followed to the woods lived happily with Speckles and Spot and as they grew up and married they raised their Tads in that same puddle.
“The pretty toad that jumped into Betty’s lap a while ago was either Father Speckles or Tibby, who sniffed something to eat and wondered if we humans ate the same delicious bugs that he preferred above everything else.”