wasn't papa a man of science?"

"No; he was a young civil engineer, with only science enough to be
employed on the first surveys and construction of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad. But he is one of the most accurate observers I have ever seen,
and so careful in his statements that, as you know, he relates even a
common fact as cautiously as if he were giving evidence in a court of
justice."

"Well, I should like to hear it over again. Tell me the story."

"Your father was, as I said, a young engineer superintending the
construction of the line of road west from Sir John's Run, near Berkeley
Springs, in West Virginia. His men were engaged in blasting a mass of
very hard rock--gneiss, he called it--which ran across the line. Coming
up to where they were at work, immediately after a fresh blast, he found
the block that had just been detached lying on the ground. It was a mass
of stone about as large as the chair you are sitting on; the surface
where it had just been severed from the parent rock was perfectly
smooth, except that about the middle of it appeared a reddish blister,
about the size of half an egg. This attracted your father's notice. He
was curious to see what it could mean, and taking up a hammer that was
lying near, he tapped upon it gently. It cracked like an egg-shell, and
out came a toad, which moved rather feebly, was very weak,
extraordinarily thin, and covered with a sort of red rust. He did not,
however, live more than a few minutes. Whether the blow with the hammer
had hurt him, or whether the fresh air was too much for him, nobody ever
knew. He died, and there being no professional naturalist on the spot,
his body was not preserved. The men of the gang gathered around his
death-bed, and the contractor had some marvellous stories to tell of
things of the kind he had met with in his experience.

"The spot where the toad lay in the slab of rock was probably, your
father thought, about five feet from the surface, but he could not say
with certainty. He was sure there was no fissure or opening in it
communicating with the outer air."

"I should think, mamma, you would be glad the readers of YOUNG PEOPLE
seem to be taking an interest in your friends the toads."

"So I am. I liked and protected them, for the sake of their beautiful
eyes, long before I found out how useful they are in a garden. You
recollect I used to tell you of a lady who had a splendid bed of
mignonette one year, and the next had no