The Bulldog and the Bullfrog

Horace lived at full tilt. His behavior was not the naughtinesss of a neglected child. In running out the door, he was not escaping from a cruel stepfather or an unloving mother. It was Horace’s nature to head for the horizon. Every morning, he woke up eager to discover what lay beyond the washstand and the cupboard, beyond the house and the barn and the pasture fence. His mother was exhausted by the effort of keeping her five-year-old son in check, but Ida was secretly proud of his wanderlust. Someday, somehow, she was sure it would take him far.

To the three big men staring up at the small boy sitting high in the chestnut tree, Horace presented a quandary.

Brendan Fitzmorris had seen the boy before, and therefore when he caught sight of Dr. Clock and Eben Flint emerging from the house of Josiah Gideon, he shouted at them and pointed up at Horace.

Horatio Biddle watched with satisfaction as the heads of Alexander and Eben swiveled to follow Brendan’s pointing hand. Gratified, he saw them cross the road and climb over the wall.

“Is that your boy?” thundered Horatio. He, too, pointed skyward (it was a favorite pulpit gesture).

Alexander and Eben looked up at the chubby object sitting high overhead in the famous chestnut tree. Looking down, they saw the Fitzmorris brothers with their mighty axes and long two-handled saws. Alexander exchanged a glance with Eben, and then, instead of shouting up at Horace and ordering him to come down, he swung himself up on a low branch and began climbing. Eben grinned and followed him. Hand over hand, they went up easily. The branches were like stair steps. Horatio Biddle watched them climb higher and higher, and he smiled at the thought of the scolding the mischievous boy was about to receive.

Horace waited cheerfully for his uncle and stepfather. “I’m all right, Papa,” he called down as they came nearer. “I’m all right, Uncle Eben.”

There was an angry shout from below: “Get that boy down.”

“Of course you’re all right, Horace.” Alexander smiled at his small stepson and stepped sideways to settle down beside him and hold him firmly with one arm. Eben found a nearby branch, and at once he piped up with a favorite song of his mother’s—Eudocia had brought up a singing family. “Oh, the bulldog on the bank!”

At once, Horace and Alexander chimed in with the next line. “And the bullfrog in the pool!”

With the last lines, they were joined by a deep bellow from below. “And the bulldog called the bullfrog a green old water fool!”

Looking down, they saw Josiah Gideon leaping up into the tree. They watched him climb higher and higher, his strong hands grasping branch after branch, his beard streaming sideways and his great laugh booming all over the graveyard.

Soon there were four birds nesting in the top of the tree. Gazing around the horizon from their lofty perch, Josiah, Eben, Alexander, and Horace could see eight church steeples pointing skyward above the treetops in villages to the east, west, north, and south.

Far below at the foot of the tree, the Fitzmorris brothers were grinning from ear to ear, but the bullfrog was beside himself with rage.