A little brother to the bear, and other animal studies

by William J. Long

As the summer grew hotter and hotter K'dunk left the door-step and made for himself a better den. All toads do this in the scorching days—hollow out a retreat under a sod or root or rotten stump, and drowse there in its cool damp shade while the sun blisters overhead. Just in front of the door-step some broad flagstones extended across the lawn to the sidewalk. The frosts of many winters had forced them apart, some more and some less, and a ribbon of green grass now showed between many pairs of the stones. Where the ribbon was widest K'dunk found out, in some way, that the thin sod covered a hollow underneath, and he worked at this until the sod gave way and he tumbled into a roomy cavern under one of the flagstones. Here it was always cool, and he abandoned the door-step forthwith, sleeping through the drowsy August days in the better place that his wits had discovered.

Now K'dunk, with good hunting in the garden and with much artificial feeding at our hands, grew fatter and fatter. At times when he came hopping home in the morning, swelled out enormously with the uncounted insects that he had eaten, he found the space between the flagstones uncomfortably narrow. Other toads have the same difficulty and, to avoid it, simply scratch the entrance to their dens a little wider; but dig and push as he would, K'dunk could not budge the flagstones.

He scratched a longer entrance after his first hard squeezing, but that did no good; the doorway was still uncomfortably narrow, and he often reminded me, going into his house, of a very fat and pompous man trying to squeeze through a turnstile, tugging and pushing and tumbling through with a grunt at last, and turning to eye the invention indignantly. To get out of his den was easy, for during the long day he had digested his dinner and was thin again; but how to get in comfortably in the morning with a full stomach,—that was the question.

One morning I saw him come out of the garden, and I knew instantly that he had more trouble ahead. He had found some rich nests of bugs that night and had eaten enormously; his "fair round body" dragged along the grass as he crawled rather than hopped to his doorway, and his one desire seemed to be to tumble into his den drowsily and go to sleep. But alas! he could not get in. He had reached the limit at last.

First he put his head and shoulders through, and by pulling at the under side of the flagstones tried to hitch and coax his way in. All in vain! His fat body caught between the obstinate flags and only wedged tighter and tighter. The bulging part without was so much bigger than the part within that he must have given it up at a glance, could he only have seen himself. But he worked away with wonderful patience till he knew it was of no use, when he pushed himself out again and sat looking into his inhospitable doorway, blinking and tousled and all covered with dust and grass roots. As he sat he kept scratching the place where his ear should be, as if he were thinking.

In a moment or two, as if he had solved the problem, he turned around and hitched his hind legs into the hole. He was going in backwards, but carefully, awkwardly, as if he were not used to it. This, however, was worse than the other, for his obstinate belly only wedged the tighter and, with a paw down on either side of him, every push lifted him up instead of pulling him down. He gave up quicker than before, because his head was out now and he could see better how he was progressing. At last he lay down, as if he had solved the problem, and tried to squirm through his long doorway lengthwise. This was better. He could get either his hind legs or his head and shoulders through; but, like the buckets in the well, when one end was down the other end was up, and still his fat, obstinate body refused to go through with the rest. Still he seemed to be making progress, for every teeter of head and legs worked his uncomfortable dinner into better shape. At the end he wedged himself too tight, and there was a harder scramble to get out than there had been to get in. By a desperate push and kick he freed himself at last and sat, all tousled again, blinking into his doorway, meditating.

Suddenly he turned and lowered his hind legs into the hole. He was more careful this time, afraid of being caught. When he had dropped through as far as he could go, he sat very still for some moments, supporting himself with a paw on either side. His jaws opened slowly—and full of wonder at a curious twitching motion he was making, I crept near on hands and knees and looked down into his wide-open mouth. There was his dinner, all sorts of flies and night-bugs, coming up little by little and being held in his great mouth as in a basket, while his stomach worked below and sent up supplies to relieve the pressure.

Slowly he slipped down as the stones began to lose their hard grip. A squirm, a twist, a comfortable roll of his stomach, a sudden jounce—and the thing was done. K'dunk was resting with a paw on either flagstone, his body safe below and his mouth, still wide open above, holding its precious contents, like an old-fashioned valise that had burst open. Then he swallowed his disturbed dinner down again in big gulps, and with a last scramble disappeared into his cool den.

That night he did not come out, but the second night he was busy in the garden as usual. To our deep regret he deserted both the door-step and the den with its narrow opening under the flagstones. It may be that in his own way he had pondered the problem of what might have become of him had the owl been after him when he came home that morning; for when I found him again he was safe under the hollow roots of an old apple-tree, where the entrance was wide enough to tumble in quickly, however much he had eaten. And there he stayed by day as long as I kept tabs on him.