“No, no!” pouted the boy with some impatience. “I want to hear the woman's voice! Tell me, mother, why the human voice stirs all my feelings!”
The toad mother said within her breast, “The human child has heard and seen his real mother. I cannot keep him longer, I fear. Oh, no, I cannot give away the pretty creature I have taught to call me 'mother' all these many winters.”
“Mother,” went on the child voice, “tell me one thing. Tell me why my little brothers and sisters are all unlike me.”
The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: “The eldest is always best.”
This reply quieted the boy for a while. Very closely watched the old toad mother her stolen human son. When by chance he started off alone, she shoved out one of her own children after him, saying: “Do not come back without your big brother.”
Thus the wild boy with the long, loose hair sits every day on a marshy island hid among the tall reeds. But he is not alone. Always at his feet hops a little toad brother. One day an Indian hunter, wading in the deep waters, spied the boy. He had heard of the baby stolen long ago.
“This is he!” murmured the hunter to himself as he ran to his wigwam. “I saw among the tall reeds a black-haired boy at play!” shouted he to the people.
At once the unhappy father and mother cried out, “'Tis he, our boy!” Quickly he led them to the lake. Peeping through the wild rice, he pointed with unsteady finger toward the boy playing all unawares.
“'Tis he! 'tis he!” cried the mother, for she knew him.
In silence the hunter stood aside, while the happy father and mother caressed their baby boy grown tall.