Another long silence intervened. The rocking-chair swayed back and forth, and Mr. Slater snored. Little bright eyes glowed and disappeared, now high, now low, against the dark. It will never be known whether Ardelia thought them defective gaslights or the flashing, changing electric signs that add color to the night advertisements of her native city, for contrary to all fictional precedent, she did not inquire with interest what they were. She did not care, in fact. After half an hour of the katydids William spoke. “Nick Damon’s helpin’ in the south lot t’day,” he observed. “Was he?” asked his mother, pausing a moment in her rocking. “Yep.” Again he smoked, and the monotonous clamor was uninterrupted. “_Zig-a-zig! Zig-zig! Zig-a-zig-a-zig!_” Slowly, against the background of this machine-like clicking, there grew other sounds, weird, unhappy, far away. “_Wheep, wheep, wheep!_” This was a high, thin crying. “_Buroom! Brrroom! broom!_” This was low and resonant and solemn. Ardelia scowled. “Wha’s ’at?” she asked again. “That’s the frogs. Bull-frogs and peepers. Never heard them, either, did ye? Well, that’s what they are.” William took his pipe out of his mouth. “Come here, sissy, ’n I’ll tell y’ a story,” he said lazily. Ardelia obeyed, and glancing timorously at the shadows, slipped around to his side. “Onc’t they was an ol’ feller comin’ ’long cross-lots, late at night, an’ he come to a pond, an’ he kinder stopped up an’ says to himself, ’Wonder how deep th’ ol’ pond is, anyhow?’ He was just a leetle—well, he’d had a drop too much, y’ see——” “Had a what?” interrupted Ardelia. “He was sort o’ rollin’ ’round—he didn’t know just what he _was_ doin’——” “Oh! Jagged!” said Ardelia comprehendingly. “I guess so. An’ he heard a voice singin’ out, ’Knee _deep_! Knee _deep_! Knee _deep_!’” William gave a startling imitation of the peepers: his voice was a high, shrill wail. “’Oh, well,’ s’ he, ‘’f it’s just knee deep I’ll wade through,’ an’ he starts in. “Just then he hears a big feller singin’ out, ‘Better go _rrrround_! Better go _rrround! better-goround_!’” William rolled out a vibrating bass note that startled the bull-frogs themselves. “’Lord!’ says he, ‘is it s’deep’s that? Well, I’ll go round, then.’ ’N’ off he starts to walk around. “’_Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!_’ says the peepers. “An’ there it was. Soon’s he’d start to do one thing, they’d tell him another. Make up his mind he couldn’t, so he stands there still, they do say, askin’ ’em every night which he better do.” “Stands where?” Ardelia looked fearfully behind her. “Oh, I d’know. Out in that swamp, mebbe.” Again he smoked, and the younger boy chuckled. Time passed by. To Ardelia it might have been minutes, hours, or generations. An unspeakable boredom, an _ennui_ that struck to the roots of her soul, possessed her. Her muscles twitched from nervousness. Her feet ached and burned in the stiff boots.