One spring Mrs. Gray planted a small garden of her own. She liked lettuce so well that she planned to grow a great deal of it. She said that she would put in some seed every two or three weeks.
Soon the lettuce began to come up. The leaves were tender and green. Every time Mrs. Gray went to the
One morning Mrs. Gray went out to her garden to see whether the lettuce was large enough to cut. But instead of her thick bed of green lettuce she found only a few plants growing here and there. She was very sorry that her little lettuce plants were almost all gone. She stooped down and looked
That evening she said to Mr. Gray, “Something has eaten almost all of my tender young lettuce.”
“I wonder what could have done it,” said Mr. Gray. “I will go to the garden and see whether I can tell.”
When Mr. Gray came back into the house, he said, “I know what it was. Some slugs have been getting your lettuce.”
“But I did not see any slugs,” said Mrs. Gray.
“Oh, no,” replied Mr. Gray. “Slugs eat young plants at night, and then before daylight comes they hide.”
“What can I do to keep the slugs away from my lettuce bed?” asked Mrs. Gray.
“Toads will eat the slugs. Toads are good friends to have in the garden, because they eat up insects that destroy our vegetables,” replied Mr. Gray.
“But there are no toads in our garden,” said Mrs. Gray.
“That is true,” said Mr. Gray. “But while John and Frank are visiting Grandmother, they could get you some toads from her garden. John’s last letter says they found a great many toads there. The boys could catch some and send them to you.”
That night Mrs. Gray wrote to John and Frank, asking them to send her some toads as soon as they could.
The boys laughed when they had read their mother’s letter. They thought it would be great fun to send her some toads for her garden.
“But how can we send the toads?” asked Frank.
“Oh, we can put them into a big box, with some earth and send them by express,” said John.
“Why should we put dirt into the box?” asked Frank.
“That is to keep the toads damp and cool,” said John. “Toads do not like much heat. If they are kept warm very long, they die.”
“Let’s catch the toads now,” said Frank eagerly.
John laughed. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t find many toads in the daytime. They do not stay out in the bright sunshine. They hide under stones or boards or big leaves and sleep nearly all day. Wait until this evening. Then all the toads will come out, and we can catch some.”
That evening about sunset, just as John had said, the toads came hopping out from their cool beds. Their eyes were very bright. They were looking for their supper.
put them into the box. But the toads hopped out as fast as they were put in.
“This will never do,” said John. “We must make a cover for the box to keep the toads inside.” So they found a piece of wire netting to put over the top of the box.
Then John and Frank began to catch the toads again and to put them into the box. Each time they put a toad into the box, they put the wire netting over the top to keep the toads from hopping out. The boys handled the toads very gently, because they did not want to hurt their little brown friends. They were not afraid of the toads. They knew that the toads could not hurt them in any way, nor make warts on their hands.
It took a long time to catch the toads. They hopped away from John and Frank as fast as they could. By and by it was so dark the boys could not see. They had to get a lantern from Grandmother. Then it was not so hard to find the toads. They hopped out into the light.
When the expressman drove up to Mrs. Gray’s house, she was looking for him: “I have a box for you,” he said.
“Oh, yes, that’s the box of toads that I asked John and Frank to send me,” said Mrs. Gray.
Mrs. Gray peeped through the wire netting to see how many toads were in the box. Imagine her surprise when she saw only two toads.
“I wonder how all those toads got away,” said Mrs. Gray. “I know there were more in this big box. These two toads are all that are left. They look so dusty and tired I am going to pour some water on them to wash them off before I put them in the garden. I am sorry that the other toads got away.”
Mrs. Gray poured some water into the box of dirt. Then something happened that surprised her very much. The earth in the box began to crack and move. Out of the earth came the toads. Mrs. Gray counted them. There were twenty toads. All but two had been down in the earth where it was damp.
The toads blinked their bright eyes and made soft noises. Maybe they were saying, “Thank you for the cool water.”
Mrs. Gray planted more lettuce seed every three weeks and had good lettuce all summer.
When John and Frank came home from their visit, they enjoyed watching the toads help their mother.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — By the Roadside (Dunn and Troxell)/The Toads That Took a Trip. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.