[Valuelist-users] Plied Mr. Redwing. "Is that whom you fellows are looki

[Lodi L. <pte...@so...>]

E for singing, and they were doing their best to tell Old Mother Nature
how they love her, and how glad they were that she had brought back
sweet Mistress Spring to waken them from their long sleep. It was so
peaceful and beautiful there that it didn't seem possible that danger of
any kind could be lurking near. But Old Mr. Toad, swelling out that
queer music bag in his throat and singing with all his might, never once
forgot that wise saying of his, and so he was the first to see what
looked like nothing so much as a little detached bit of the blackness of
the Green Forest floating out towards the Smiling Pool. Instantly he
stopped singing. Now that was a signal. When he stopped singing, his
nearest neighbor stopped singing, then the next one and the next, and in
a minute there wasn't a sound from the Smiling Pool save the squeak of
Jerry Muskrat hidden among the bulrushes. That great chorus stopped as
abruptly as the electric lights go out when you press a button. Back and
forth over the Smiling Pool, this way and that way, floated the shadow,
but there was no sign of any living thing in the Smiling Pool. After
awhile the shadow floated away over the Green Meadows without a sound.
"Hooty the Owl didn't get one of us that time," said Old Mr. Toad to his
nearest neighbor with a chuckle of satisfaction. Then he swelled out his
music bag and began to sing again. And at once, as abruptly as it had
stopped, the great chorus began again as joyous as before, for nothing
had happened to bring sadness as might have but for the watchfulness of
Old Mr. Toad. VIII OLD MR. TOAD'S BABI