FROGS
FROGS was one time catter pillers. When you have et a catter in your salad it would have been a frog if you didnt. A feller named Esop says there was a ox which tried for to be a frog and busted. If it didnt bust it would have et hay and hooked and give milk. The best place to find frogs is after a rain, but they jump before you can get your hands on them, and them which dont will slip through your fingers like they was buttered, but when they fall on the ground you can see their white bellies if you look real quick.
One night there was a lot of frogs in a lake, and there was a fire on the shore, and they all stuck their heads up for to see the fire, and the water froze, and when they tried to take their heads in they couldnt. So they held a council, and each laid his views before the king frog, which was in the middle, and there was jest as many plans for freein the whole lot as there was frogs which couldnt move a inch. The king he didnt say nothing, but looked mighty wise. When the sun melted them out in the morninthey said: “What a good and wise king we have, for to get us out of trouble! Let us go and thank him.”
But when they went to thank him they couldn’t find nothing to thank, only but jest his head, for a cat fish had bit off the king’s body early in the session. Then they said the king had died for his peoples.
Uncle Ned he said, Uncle Ned did: “Johnny, frogs is fine and gay, but the batrakian is a monster of the ocean blue. He has a mouth like a cavern in a hill, and a eye accordin. He is green as a meadow in spring time, exceptin the stomach of his belly, which is as the winter land scope. His voice is like the music of a saw mill and nations hear entranced. When he arises in his wrath his course is as the eagles flight, and when he revisits the earth whence he sprang from, the waters receive him with a roar which makes the heavens be mute!”
Then I spoke up and said: “Thats what a frog does too.”
Uncle Ned he said: “All animated nature has points of resemble. The postage stamp is like the sword fish, cause it is a sticker, the polly wog is like the feller which writes short stories, cause his tailis not to be continued, and the wife is like the tagger, cause she roars like distant thunder. I forgot to tell you that the batrakian is a hunch back, but it isn’t good luck for to touch his hunch, for you will get your feets wet if you try to, for he is the slickest citizen you ever seen and departs this life for a other and wetter world at a moments notice, automattical.”
I said: “Thats like frogs too.”
Uncle Ned he looked mighty hurt and shook his head, and bime by said: “Johnny, you got a bad habit of interruptin for to say some fool thing just as a feller is gettin truly eloquent, but since you mention frogs I will tell you a story.
“One time a feller from Kansas was casted away on the coast of New Jersey and was a starvin, when he found a bushel of oysters and sat down for to eat them every little bit up. Then he see a native nigger a little way off, a sittin by a fire, and went to him for to be sociable, takin the oysters along. The native nigger was cookin frogs, and he said, real polite: 'Have some.’
“The Kansas feller he said: 'What! are you going to eat them gum dasted reptiles?’
“The native nigger said: 'Pardon me, they are very good, what are you eatin your self?’
“The feller pointed to the oysters, and the nig turned white like he was a sheet and said: 'O Lordy, take them nasty things out of my sight, or I shall die of the flops!’
“Then the Kansas feller he said: 'I cant take them away, nor eat them either, cause the sight of your diet has give me the colly wobbles in my lap!’
“In a low green valley where the jay bird sings his requiem by the sad sea waves 2 grassy mounds mark the spot where these beautiful youths perished in their prides, each poisoned by the vituals that he didn’t eat. Let it teach you, my boy, for to not despise any food which a bountiful Providence has supplied for to sustain the lifes of his meanest cretures.”
But if it was me and Billy we would et the oysters and give the frogs to the poor, cause frogs is fossils, but oysters is pork and makes the face of man to shine!
Oysters is natives of the tropics, and is found only in high latitudes, but the rhi nosey rose is a brother to the ox.
Mister Brily, which is the fat butcher, he can slaughter a ox real fine, and his son Jack, which is the wickedsailor, says it was the sight of the beautiful blood that made him be a pirate. If I had saw Jack a piratin I would rang out my voice across the billows and said: “Heave too, you naughty man, or I will belch 4th a broad side this minute!”
Then Jack would come to my ship, mighty pale and trembly, and I would embrue my hands in his gore!
I asked Uncle Ned what for the bull frog had sech a horse voice and he said: “One day in the Garden of Eden, when Adam was passin by a pond, he heard a voice a singin sweet and clear, like a lark at the dawning of the day. He looked a long time, and bime by he seen the bull frogs head stickin out of the pond, and it was it singin. But Adam he said: 'Here, you, what for did you play truant wen I was naming all the animals? You come right out of that and be give a name.’
“So the singster come out on the bank and Adam named it bulbul frog, cause bulbul means nightingale, and then Adam said: 'I cant deny my self the happiness to hear you sing some more.’
“The bulbul frog it started for to sing again, but it couldn’t utter a note, only but jest a harsh croak, forit had took cold by comin out of the water in to the sun shine. Then Adam said: 'I was mistook. I thought it was you which I heard singin before. Ime sorry I give you that name, or named you at all, for not any name is bad enough for a feller with a voice like that.’
“So Adam he kicked it clear into the middle of the pond, but it has the cold to this day.”