For if ever a frog made its lair in the Frog Pond, it was long before the present memory of man. The Frog Pond is a pool on the Beacon Street side of Boston Common. In shape it is somewhat like a lima bean. It has a concrete bottom. Near one end there is a gushing fountain and at the other a drain, that keep the water fresh. In warm weather, hundreds of Boston children “go swimming” there every day,--brown-skinned, black-eyed Italians, little Russian Jews, a small sprinkling of native Bostonians, quite a large handful of little negroes, “Parthians and Medes and Elamites,” no doubt, and “the dwellers in Mesopotamia”; but never, never a frog. In winter, when the pool is frozen, it is a skating pond, and Flag Staff Hill, just above it, makes an ideal start for a sled to go whizzing down across the icy glare of the Frog Pond. Popular opinion has it that it was this very slide on the Common that was made famous in the winter of 1774 and 1775 by the contest between the youngsters of Boston and General Gage’s redcoats, then quartered on the town, who tried to spoil the slide with sand and ashes. Instead of submitting timidly, the boys carried their complaint to General Gage himself, who assured them that they should be undisturbed in future and said in comment, “How can we hope to beat the notion of liberty out of this people? The very boys breathe the air of liberty!” Historical truth compels me to state, however, that the Frog Pond was not the scene of this interesting passage. It was undoubtedly on School Street, in the neighborhood of the historic Latin School, that the boys’ slide was spoiled, and it was done by the servant of General Haldimand, who was in command under General Gage, though General Gage was indeed the court of appeal that decided in favor of the Latin School boys. As to the servant, I think his idea was a good one, for I have disastrously tried to walk down School Street myself on an icy day.