peeper was a frog. The discussion excited my curiosity, and I
made up my mind to satisfy myself on the subject, if possible, by
occular demonstration. There was a small marshy place, half a mile, or
so, from the college grounds, from which I had heard, in my walks, the
music of the peepers coming up every evening, in a loud and joyous
chorus. I watched by it a number of evenings, and though there were a
plenty of peepers, piping merrily enough, yet I could not get sight of
one to save me. I began to think it was a myth, the viewless spirit of
the bog, that made all the noises about which the learned professors
had been disputing. At last, however, I got sight of a peeper, caught
him in the act, and saw that it was, in fact, a little frog, nothing
more, nothing less. He was not more than three feet from me, and
though, when I moved, he hid himself in the muddy water, yet I managed
to capture and take him home alive. He was a little animal, certainly,
not larger than a half-dollar piece, and it was marvellous how a thing
so small could make such a loud and piercing noise. I took him to my
room, and placed him in a water-tight box, in which I fashioned an
artificial bog, in the hope that he would confirm my testimony by his
piping. The second evening, as I sat in my room, poring over the
recitations of the morrow, he lifted up his voice, loud, shrill, and
clear, as when singing in his native marsh. I hurried, in triumph, to
the learned disputants about his identity, and in their presence, he
furnished unanswerable evidence that the peeper was a frog, and not a
newt. I was complimented by both the learned pundits, as though I had
added a great item to the aggregate of human knowledge."

"You _did_ do a great thing, my friend," said Spalding, "you solved a
mystery about which men, wise in the learning of the books, had
perhaps been disputing for centuries. What are the peepers? asked the
naturalist, who listened to their piping notes from the marshy places
in the spring time. It was a matter of small practical importance,
what they were. Still it was a question which MIND wanted to have
solved. Its solution would do no great amount of good to the world.
But then it was a mystery which it was the business of mind to lay
bare; and what more has science done in tracing the history and
progress of this earth of ours, as written upon the rocks, among which
geology has been so long delving? 'What are the peepers?' asked the
natur