“Here he comes,” said one, as soon as Timmy entered.
“Have you heard the news?” inquired the tavern keeper.
“No,” said Timmy with a groan.
“Joe Gawky ’as seen sech a critter in the pond! A monstrous large frog, as big as an ox, with eyes as large as a horse. I never heard of no such thing in all my born days!”
“Nor I,” said Sam Greening.
“Nor I,” said Josh Whiting.
“Nor I,” said Tom Bizbee.
“I have heard tell of sech a critter in Ohio,” said Eb Crawley. “Frogs have been seed there, as big as a suckling pig, but not in these ’ere parts.”
“Mrs. Timmings,” said Sam Greening, “feels quite melancholy about it. She guesses as how it’s a sign of some terrible thing that’s going to happen.”
“I was fishing for pickerel,” said Joe Gawky, who, by the way, was a tall, spindle-shanked fellow, with a white head, and who stooped in the chest like a crook-necked squash. “I was after pickerel, and had a frog’s leg for bait. There was a tarnation big pickerel just springing at the line, when out sailed this great he-devil from under the bank. By the living hokey! He was as large as a small-sized man! Such a straddle-bug I never seed! I up line, and cleared out like a blue fish, I can tell you!”