dora assented. "But
the good will be better off."

I did not gain much comfort from the conversation, however, and for
years thereafter the thought of death filled me with the same choking
sense of terror.

CHAPTER XVI

WOOD-CHUCKS IN THE CLOVER--ADDISON'S STRATAGEM

Creameries with ice-chests were as yet unheard of in the rural counties
of Maine in 1866. At the old farm, all of the dairy milk was set in pans
on the clean, cool cellar bottom. As the warm mornings of midsummer drew
on, Gram was usually up by five o'clock, attending to her cream and
butter; and about this time, as we issued drowsily forth, in response to
the Old Squire's early rap, we were repeatedly startled at hearing a
sudden eldritch exclamation which was half scream, at the foot of the
bulkhead stairs.

"What's the matter down there, Ruth?" the Old Squire would exclaim.

"Dear me, I've stepped on that hateful toad again!" Gram would reply.
"It's always under foot there! Do, Ellen, you get the tongs and carry
that toad off again. Carry him away out to the foot of the garden, below
the currant bushes. I don't see how he is forever getting back to the
foot of those stairs! It gives me such a start, to put my foot on him!"

And Gram would have to sit down for a time, to fan herself and to
recover her composure.

"Well, Ruth, I should think it would give the toad a start, too," the
Old Squire would comment, dryly.

Meantime Ellen or Addison would proceed to capture the toad--a fine, big
brown chunk of a toad--and exile him to the garden. Once Ellen carried
him, wriggling in the tongs, around to the back side of the west barn.
Ad, too, carried him out into the orchard one night. But by the next
day, or the day following, toady would be back at the foot of the
bulkhead stairs again. There is no doubt that it was the same toad, and
he certainly must have possessed a good sense of locality. We could not
for some time imagine how he obtained entrance to the cellar, for he
returned to his favorite cool spot on days when the outer bulkhead door
was closed. Addison at length decided that he must have got in by way of
the cellar drain, on the back side of the house.

It was contrary to all the homely traditions at the farm to kill or
maltreat a toad. Not less than seven times was that toad carefully
carried away into the garden, or down the lane.

At last Gram's patience was exhausted. Her ire rose. "I'll see if you
come back into my cellar a