The Bullfrog

"Harump! Harump! Harump!"

The old bullfrog's powerful harumping boomed upward, filtered through the willow tree's slender branches, and blossomed into the blue sky. Even if we'd been standing deep inside the bean field we'd have heard it:

"Harump! Harump! Harump!"

On the pond's opposite bank, maybe I was smiling a little. Maybe in Red Dog's eyes a special glisten shined. But, then...

The dark, stiff, shiny head of a water snake emerged from the pond's surface. Red Dog's eyebrows tensed and I held my breath. Neither he nor I moved or made a sound.

Silently as a shadow the snake swam to the opposite bank and slithered into the grass. So slowly that we couldn't see him moving at all he began inching toward the harumping bullfrog. For ten minutes he got closer and closer and closer... and the old frog just kept harumping.

Red Dog's eyebrows quivered as he glanced toward me in a way that said he didn't understand why I wasn't doing something to save the old frog.

Splash!

A mighty leap carried the old frog far into the pond. By the time I'd moved my eyes from the pond back to shore, already the snake had disappeared.

Red Dog and I stood up.

"Red Dog," I explained, "to me that water snake was as beautiful as the old frog. If we had tried to save the frog, then I would have felt bad for having taken the snake's meal from him."

I doubted if Red Dog understood my explanation.

However, I am certain that he sensed how relieved I was that the old frog had escaped.