Thou shalt not preach.

The woods were as empty as some great empty house; they were hollow and
silent and somber. I stood looking in among the leafless trees, heavy in
spirit at the quiet and gloom, when close by my side spoke a tiny voice. I
started, so suddenly, so unexpectedly it broke into the wide December
silence, so far it echoed through the empty forest halls.

"What!" I exclaimed, turning in my tracks and addressing a small
brown-leafed beech. "What! little Hyla, are you still out? You! with a
snow-storm brewing and St. Nick due here to-morrow night?" And then from
within the bush, or on it, or under it, or over it, came an answer, _Peep,
peep, peep!_ small and shrill, dropping into the silence of the woods and
stirring it as three small pebbles might drop into the middle of a wide
sleeping pond.

It was one of those gray, heavy days of the early winter--one of the
vacant, spiritless days of portent that wait hushed and numb before a
coming storm. Not a crow, nor a jay, nor a chickadee had heart enough to
cheep. But little Hyla, the tree-frog, was nothing daunted. Since the last
week in February, throughout the spring and the noisy summer on till this
dreary time, he had been cheerfully, continuously piping. This was his
last call.

_Peep, peep, peep!_ he piped in February; _Peep, peep, peep!_ in August;
_Peep, peep, peep!_ in December. But did he?

"He did just that," replies the scientist, "and that only."

"Not at all," I answer.