"And often when he'd be setting in church, perhaps in the most solemn
part of the sermon, he'd feel something give two or three quick kinder
jerks under his vest, and presently that reptile would bawl right out
in the meeting 'Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-noun! Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-oun!'
and keep it up until the sexton would come along and run out two or
three boys for profaning the sanctuary. And at last he'd fix it on
poor old Barnes, and then tell him that if he wanted to practice
ventriloquism he'd better wait till after church. And then the frog'd
give six or seven more hollers, so that the minister would stop and
look at Barnes, and Barnes'd get up and skip down the aisle and go
home furious about it.

"It had a deep voice for an ordinary frog--betwixt a French horn and a
bark-mill. And Mrs. Barnes told me herself that often, when John'd get
comfortably fixed in bed and just dropping off into a nap, the frog'd
think it was a convenient time for some music; and after hopping
about a bit, it'd all at once grind out three or four awful
'Bloo-oo-ood-a-nouns' and wake Mrs. Barnes and the baby, and start
things up generally all around the house. And--would you believe
it?--if that frog felt, maybe, a little frisky, or p'raps had some
tune running through its head, it'd keep on that way for hours. It
worried Barnes like thunder.

"I dunno whether it was that that killed his wife or not; but anyhow,
when she died, Barnes wanted to marry agin, and he went for a while to
see Miss Flickers, who lives out yer on the river road, you know. He
courted her pretty steady for a while, and we all thought there was
goin' to be a consolidation. But she was telling my wife that one
evening Barnes had just taken hold of her hand and told her he