to tell
anybody, but I thought they'd be no harm in mentioning it to you.

"And now I believe I must be going. I hear Bill a-whistling. Maybe
he's got something else to tell me."

The Smith boy will be profitable to the youth of the community.

* * * * *

Barnes, the pedagogue, is a worthy man who has seen trouble. Precisely
what was the nature of the afflictions which had filled his face with
furrows and given him the air of one who has been overburdened with
sorrows was not revealed until Mr. Keyser told the story one evening
at the grocery-store. Whether his narrative is strictly true or not
is uncertain. There is a bare possibility that Mr. Keyser may have
exaggerated grossly a very simple fact.

"Nobody ever knew how it got in there," said Mr. Keyser, clasping his
hands over his knee and spitting into the stove. "Some thought Barnes
must've swallowed a tadpole while drinking out of a spring and it
subsequently grew inside him, while others allowed that maybe he'd
accidentally eaten frogs' eggs some time and they'd hatched out.
But anyway, he had that frog down there inside of him settled and
permanent and perfectly satisfied with being in out of the rain. It
used to worry Barnes more'n a little, and he tried various things to
git rid of it. The doctors they give him sickening stuff, and over and
over agin emptied him; and then they'd hold him by the heels and shake
him over a basin, and they'd bait a hook with a fly and fish down his
throat hour after hour, but that frog was too intelligent. He never
even gave them a nibble; and when they'd try to fetch him with an
emetic, he'd dig his claws into Barnes's membranes and hold on until
the storm was over.

"Not that Barnes minded the frog merely being in there if he'd only a
kept quiet. But he was too vociferous--that's what Barnes said to me.
A taciturn frog he wouldn't have cared about so much. But how would
you like to have one down inside of you there a-whooping every now and
then in the most ridiculous manner? Maybe, for instance, Barnes'd be
out taking tea with a friend, and just when everybody else was quiet
it'd suddenly occur to his frog to tune-up, and the next minute you'd
hear something go 'Blo-o-o-ood-a-noun! Blo-oo-oo-ood-a-noun!' two or
three times, apparently under the table. Then the folks would ask if
there was an aquarium in the house or if the man had a frog-pond in
the cellar, and Barnes'd get as red as fire