Toad's Destiny

I

SPRING slipped into the valley, washing away the winter’s snow, melting the ice on the water hazard. Tattered fishes hunted ravenously. Frogs and newts and turtles crawled out of the bottom ooze and sunned themselves in the shallowest water. The garter snakes, who had been awake for a month or more, prowled the swampy margin, catching gaunt sluggish frogs with little effort. Seeds were swelling, bursting. Over in the rough, fern fronds unrolled. Up on the hill, boys in ragged sweaters raced in and out of the caddy house. And close by the foundation wall, two feet underground, Bufo’s heart beat a little faster.

Bufo had slept a full six months, and more than once during the long night his heart had faltered. One more degree of cold, another half inch of ice, and death, who stood so close, would have stilled his heart forever. Bufo was scarcely conscious even now. His legs were drawn tight against his belly. His face lay submissively on long thin hands. His skin had adopted the color and texture of the dark earth so completely that the toad was indistinguishable from the clods about him.

As the afternoon sun warmed the earth, and his own cold blood, Bufo raised his head. He half opened his eyes and exhaled some of the stale, cold air that had been in his lungs all winter. His spurs dug into the earth and he tunneled upward, for Bufo needed air, and food, and water. He traveled several inches and was beginning to need a rest, when the earth gave way and he fell, sprawling, into a narrow tunnel. He sat for a long time blinking foolishly, and wiping his face with skinny fingers. Although it was entirely dark, he kept trying to see. He heard a faint rustling, and then he knew that he was in a mole hole. The last time Bufo had blundered into such a place a trap had snapped, just behind him. The memory of danger came back now. He struck out with his armed hind feet, and never stopped until he could see the sky.

As soon as his feet touched the grass, Bufo sighed, and his inflated body collapsed as suddenly, as grotesquely, as a pricked balloon. He huddled close to the ground, breathing fast, watching and listening everywhere. Commonplace sounds seemed very loud. Ordinary movements of birds and beasts and boys frightened him.

The dank moisture of the underworld was fast leaving him, and he needed water desperately. The longfingered shadow of a lilac bush looked a little damp. He hopped over, stretching his legs cautiously. A few forgotten raindrops lingered in a spot where the earth packed hard, and Bufo wallowed in the tiny puddle. His whole parched body drank, for he could obtain water only by absorption through his skin.

The sun fell behind the hills, and the spring twilight was cool with a hint of rain that made Bufo think his journey to the water hazard would be a pleasant one. He knew that his puddle was a temporary oasis, and he needed much water. He was hungry, and he knew that the first bugs, the earliest worms, live close to the water. He was not yet lonely, but as he squatted in his puddle, with the blue dusk around him, he listened to the harsh love songs of the frogs. No toads were singing, but they soon would be.

He left the puddle and hopped with slow determination through the soft grass, across the moss-smooth putting green, and into the coarse shelter of the woods. Wherever there was moisture he paused and absorbed as much as possible. Then the hungry little hermit plodded on.

He was crossing a small clearing in the rough when a swift dark shape moved above him. Bufo leaped desperately into a pile of brush and lay breathless, motionless, deflated, as an owl struck the very spot where he had stood. He huddled under the branches for a long time. Even his heartbeats stilled, for the owls rarely miss their prey, and the toad’s small venom is no defense against the beak and claws of the sad night hunter.

Though the owl had gone back to its limb, Bufo dared not leave his shelter. He dug stealthily in the soft mould until he had made a burrow, just large enough to protect his back. And there he waited, with the eternal wistful optimism of the meek, until his enemy should have found another supper. After a while the owl swooped again, and Bufo saw it skim the ground with a field mouse clutched tight. Then he knew that the owl would not be thinking of him soon again.

II

The young April moon was shining when Bufo reached the water hazard. He paused a moment to look for enemies, then plunged straight into the shallow water. It was good to be wet. There was pure joy in diving to the very bottom, in feeling his body grow plump and young.

He swam over to a rotting stump and sat with his head and throat out of water. He wiped his face with dexterous four-fingered hands. He rubbed the back of his head with his big spurred feet. He looked at the moon, and saw in its slim crescent a reflection of his own golden eyes. He was content with his world as he found it.

He swallowed mouthful after mouthful of air. His black throat swelled until it was a great bubble, larger than his head. So Bufo sang to the moon. He sang to his brothers who were plodding through the woods to the water hazard. He sang to the female toads who still slept in the dark earth. His song was clear, monotonous, but sweet as any bird’s song; for a million years ago the toads taught the birds to sing.

The green frog colony a few yards away was noisy. The leopard frogs up toward the creek croaked and rattled uproariously. But through all the songs of the water hazard Bufo’s small voice could be heard — the plaintive, lonely call of the hermit come back to his own. And down the hill and through the meadow, across dusty roads and out of the woods, toads came.

By morning dozens of grotesque little monsters squatted on stumps and branches, and in the black mud. Bufo looked them over and noticed with some satisfaction that he was the largest toad in the cove. Some of the youngsters were probably his sons.

That pale little fellow who had come to the water hazard for the first time looked remarkably like a female Bufo had known four springs ago.

A warm rain was falling, bringing earthworms to the surface. A fat worm squirmed out, scarcely two feet away. Bufo’s horizontal pupils narrowed until they were cunning slits, lie waddled awkwardly out of the water, trying hard to be stealthy. But he was too hungry for much deliberation. With a great lumbering hop he seized the worm, sat back and started cramming it into his mouth. The worm slipped through his fingers with startling ease. Bufo lunged again and caught it just as the slimy body was boring into the wet earth. Bufo pulled. The worm stretched and stretched, but again it drooled out of his mouth. He sat back wondering. Suddenly he realized that he had caught the worm by the tail. He had n’t done such a thing for years.

He waited until another worm came up to avoid drowning, and this time he circled it with slow hops until he was sure that the pointed end faced him. His tongue shot out, and his big toothless mouth snapped quick and hard. His tongue was not very adhesive after the long fast, but his fingers were agile, and his eyes closed, rolling down into his mouth, pushing the worm along. He hopped back to the water, blinking and gaping, a little sorry that he had eaten such a large worm.

Late in the afternoon Bufo sat on a stump. The toads were singing. The frogs were croaking. An old male turtle piped faintly. But Bufo was uncomfortable. His skin felt dry and dirty. He humped his back and stretched; the skin tore. He stretched again, and it split down his legs. Bit by bit he sucked in the loosened skin. His feet wriggled out of their worn garment. His hands clawed free. A tough ball of skin accumulated under his tongue, and at last the dark sheath slipped off his face. He swallowed the rubbery wad — now he could really sing.

His skin felt moist and clean. He knew that he was handsome. His back was light, as light as clean sand. His warts stood out, magnificently hideous, tipped with red and orange. His monstrous rough head was a curious setting for the beautiful golden eyes, eyes that have been the stock in trade of sorcerers, eyes that have stewed in witches’ cauldrons.

Bufo wondered when the females would come. He looked across at the woods and sang. He was so busy singing that he did n’t hear the turtle clambering up on the rock behind him. He did n’t realize that it was there until he saw the red mouth opened wide, ready to drag him down to the water. One scared glance, and Bufo lunged into the mud. An old grandfather toad came up to breathe — and Bufo landed on his back. The old toad turned, and bit. Bufo’s fear became fury. His toothless jaws fastened in the old toad’s throat. They forgot caution and danger. They rolled and tumbled in slow rage, through the mud, up on to the bank. A golf ball whizzed an inch above them, and they never knew it.

Two men, two boys, and a dog were coming down the fairway, but the toads were deaf even to the dangerous sound of human footsteps. Bufo was on top, kicking with his spurred feet, pawing helplessly with his hands — when he was snatched off the ground. The grandfather toad rolled over and without a backward glance plunked into the water.

Bufo felt an awful, hot breath. He saw long white teeth. A slimy sweat of fear covered his body. Then a wave of agony swept through him, as the puppy tightened its hold. The weak venom that was Bufo’s one defense oozed out of his warts. The puppy dropped him, and ran yelping across the dam.

Bufo lay where he fell, his body pressed close to the earth, his eyes half closed, until the last sound and smell of the dog had faded. Then.he walked very slowly to the water. His back hurt. Close to the water’s edge, where arrowheads were nosing up, he saw a garter snake coming toward him. He hesitated for a long instant of dread, but he was too sore, too clumsy, to reach the safety of the water in time. Gradually he flattened himself, closed his eyes, and lay as still as death — not even breathing. The snake paused and watched him; but Bufo’s own consciousness was suspended. The snake glided on, and a minute later caught a careless frog.

III

Bufo sat in a silver patch of moonlight, singing. She hopped quietly out of the woods and was half across the fairway before he saw her. Then he scarcely believed she was real. She was the female every toad dreams about. Enormous, unbelievably fat, she looked so rough and light that he knew she had shed her winter skin. Her warts were brighter than Bufo’s, and her eyes were black pools where moonbeams glimmered.

Bufo blinked and swallowed. His fingers twitched. Every toad in the water hazard had seen her. Every toad was singing. When she turned aside to catch a moth, Bufo’s heart fluttered — maybe she would n’t stop at the water hazard. He must not lose her now; he had waited all his life for such a female. The rest of the toads were in the water waiting for her, a hundred males waiting for the first female. Bufo crept to the very end of his log and watched. Should he jump into the water with the other males? Somehow he must be sure of winning her, and he was no longer the biggest toad in the puddle. He teetered on the tip of his log and waited. He stopped singing. The female plopped into the mud beneath him, and Bufo jumped — carefully, even though it was a short hop. He wrapped his arms about her and clung tight.

The toad chorus paused for a startled minute, but another female was coming out of the woods — so Bufo and his bride were forgotten.

Through days and nights of ecstasy Bufo clutched his female, blind to danger, oblivious of hunger. She laid ten thousand eggs. The long streamers draped from plant to plant. Rope after rope of transparent gelatinous toad spawn covered the bottom of the cove, for the meek must be prolific in order to survive.

During the long mating Bufo learned why his female was so fat, and why she had changed her skin so early. She had not slept in the cold earth as he had; she had been awake all winter in a warm place. She told him that the sun shone a little nearly every day. He did n’t believe her. She told him that where she lived all the plants had aphids and red spiders on their stems and leaves. She could eat all night and not travel farther than from here to the big stump. Bufo did n’t believe that either, although he knew that she was not like other toads.

Bufo’s marriage ended as soon as the eggs were laid. He was very hungry, for during the long courtship he had fasted. He stayed in the cool water during the day, but all through the long twilight, until he could no longer see the flutter of a May fly’s wings, he ate.

In the warm shallow water, dark flecks mottled the coils of toad spawn. Ten thousand tiny tadpoles wriggled free of the discolored streamers. The water swarmed with tadpoles. Turtles and newts, frogs and fishes, ate them.

Water tigers and beetles sucked their blood. But still the eggs were hatching. A million polliwogs clung to water weeds, munched soft algæ, and grubbed in the mud for the discarded refuse of their betters. Lower than the fishes, sexless, incurious, defenseless, unfinished, the toad children ate and grew. After a while legs sprouted from their fat bellies. Their lungs developed, and they blundered to the surface of the water for air. Life stirred in the tiny arms that were folded across their chests, and the arms broke through the bandages of thin skin that held them. Carnivorous digestions developed from vegetarian beginnings. Puckered tadpole mouths widened into derisive grins, and the babies could not eat. They rested half out of the water, absorbing their tails, immutably, irrevocably becoming toads.

Bufo was not interested in his children. He would not cat them, as the frogs ate their tadpoles. But, except for a vague pride in his own creative ability, he was indifferent to the polliwogs. He assumed that the largest toad tadpoles were his, for he had been the first to breed.

Bufo’s chief concern was food. He noticed the scarcely perceptible lengthening of the last nights in June. The days were uncomfortably warm in the water hazard. And he knew that grasshoppers and beetles and crickets were invading the fields. They were better food than he could find over the water hazard, and the competition would be less keen. He was tired of toads, and frogs and turtles. He was a hermit again — he needed to be alone.

A great yellow moon hung so low over the water hazard that it seemed to Bufo he might catch and eat it if his tongue were a little longer. But he saw a firefly glowing, and forgot about the moon. His wife hopped out of the water and licked up a fat caterpillar. Then she started up the hill toward the woods. She was going back to the easy solitude of her greenhouse.

Bufo watched her go with the smallest shade of regret in his heart. Yet he never thought of going with her. He had been a hermit too long to think of gregariousness when it was n’t necessary.

He remembered his corner behind the caddy house. The earth would be cool there, and damp. Caterpillars would fall off the vines. Crickets would be chirping, and slugs would leave slimy trails through the night.

Bufo started up the hill, and a thousand baby toads swarmed up the bank beside him. Some of them had not entirely absorbed their tails. All of them were dark and moist. They traveled slowly, for they were less than half an inch long. Three or four years from now the survivors would come back to the water hazard to breed.

Bufo was singing as he plunged ahead of the babies. He sang softly, for he was not calling his tribe together, he no longer wanted a wife. He sang because his belly was full, and the night was warm, and he had fulfilled the destiny of toads.

A little garter snake squirmed up the bank. He passed a dozen baby toads and nipped at Bufo’s heels. Bufo quivered and lunged forward. The snake was not more than two days old; it could not hope to eat him; but Bufo was afraid of all snakes. The baby nipped again, and again Bufo jumped. A big dark head shot up before him, a wide mouth opened, and Bufo’s song was stilled. The big snake turned aside toward the woods. Bufo’s legs still protruded from her mouth, but they no longer moved. The baby snake caught an earthworm. And a thousand baby toads trudged up the hill. They neither paused nor looked about them.