The Green caldron - University Library

16 The Green Caldron
It certainly would be a great joke if my roommate knew what I was
thinking about. I think it is rather silly myself. After all, here I am,
nineteen years old, a college student, and what am I thinking about? Of all
things, frog hunting. Frog hunting just isn't the socially acceptable thing
for a teen-ager to do. It's fine sport, much healthier for a nine-year-old than
smoking. The more I think about this frog hunting, the further I seem to
be getting from the present. I feel myself going back to the "good old days"
when Glenn and I used to go frog hunting.
"Hi, Glenn," I shouted to my friend next door. "Did you hear the frogs
croakin' last night?"
"Yeah, there must be a jillion of 'em," he answered enthusiastically.
There was a pasture behind our houses that had a large swamp, just the
thing for frogs.
Joyfully we gathered our frog hunting equipment and donned our safari
clothes. Our outfits weren't very lavish, but we felt that no frog was safe
from us once we were dressed for the hunt. Dirty blue jeans, sweatshirts
with our club name "The Tigers" written on them, old worn-out gym shoes
and baseball caps completed our wardrobe. Our big game equipment con-
sisted of two big mayonnaise jars to keep the catch in. Once captured, the
frog was placed in the jar, and little air holes were punched in the cover.
Sometimes we even put some water in the jar so the frog could swim.
Actually the frog couldn't swim in the jar, but we were happy thinking
that we were good sports.
As we entered the pasture in search of frogs, we did so with confidence
because we knew everything that there is to know about frogs. We were
certain that brown frogs were boys and green frogs were girls. We had
nothing to base our facts on except pure logic. After all, what other color
could a girl frog be but green? We also knew that frogs eat flies and
mosquitoes. That is a fact that we had been taught in school so it must be
true. Another amazing fact about frogs that we had discovered was their
ability to breathe under water. We knew they could breathe under water,
because once we held one in the bottom of a bucket of water and counted to
fifty and it could still swim away.
Stealthily we crept to the edge of the swamp, hearts pounding, ears
straining to hear any movement that might be our game. Little by little we
moved, ready to spring into action. We remained as silent as possible; the
only audible sounds were those of an occasional bird and the constant squeek,
squish, squish sound of our gym shoes as we walked through puddles of
water. Half the fun of frog hunting seemed to be walking through the water,
because it made us feel like the big game hunters in the jungle movies.
"Psst, Jer, the weeds are moving over here; it must be a big frog,"
Glenn whispered anxiously.