Read Online Little Joe by Sandra Neil Wallace - Free Book Online

Eli would’ve pressed his palms against his ears to drown out the noise. But tonight it sounded perfect. It didn’t seem too loud at all.
    “Funny, ain’t it?” Grandpa sat on a moss-lined stump and smiled. “How you don’t hear a lick of a frog for five months. Then all of a sudden, one night, there they are, peeping like they’ve always been there.” Grandpa pointed at a peeper clinging to a log. “Tryin’ to impress the females.” He rolled his eyes as the peeper’s throatpuffed out to bursting. “From now on, Eli, you can keep your bedroom window open. You’ll hear them calling.”
    “How do you know, Grandpa?”
    “’Cause it used to be my window. I remember the house was so still at night, you couldn’t hear one breath. So I listened for their peeps. That’s how I knew the rest of the world was still out there.” Grandpa reached for the eating bucket. “How ’bout toasting the night with a sandwich?” He handed Eli the biggest one. “Grandma liked coming here, too,” Grandpa said. “She called it one of nature’s little miracles.”
    They both watched a salamander crawl over Eli’s boot to get to the water.
    “Put them in the bucket and keep the rhythm of life going
, she’d say. They got the same right to be here as we do. We just happen to be in charge most days.” Grandpa wiped off the Salisbury steak sauce on Eli’s cheek with a finger. “At least we think we are. Times like this, when they remind us Mother Nature’s in charge.”
    Eli smiled and watched a salamander swirl up to circle another, then back down again to the murky bottom of the pond. “It’s like they’re spinning eggs,” Eli said. “Magical eggs clear as glass.” Everywhere he looked, there were branches coated with eggs. “And there’s so many of them, it just don’t seem real.”
    “Sometimes we ain’t used to real,” Grandpa said. “So when we see it, we don’t even recognize it.”
    “They don’t notice we’re here, do they?” Eli smiled as a peeper hopped onto his coat and dove into the pond.
    “Naw. They’re so bent on finding a mate, for one night, we don’t even exist.”
    “Don’t they get tired?” Eli asked.
    “Will you be tired when you win the blue ribbon?”
    Eli knew he wouldn’t be.
    “You wouldn’t even feel how heavy the hay bale was at the end of the day, would you?”
    Eli smiled and shook his head.
    “I expect they’ll go on even longer,” Grandpa said. “Maybe for a few more nights yet.”
    “Then what happens?” Eli watched a salamander slip into the water.
    “The big ones go back to their homes under the leaves, and the eggs hatch in a couple weeks without ’em.” Grandpa put the wax paper back in the bucket. “From now on the valley won’t be silent. Until we forget again and one morning in the fall, we wake up late thinking,
What’s wrong? Why’s it so quiet?
And remember the peepers have buried themselves in the ground and gone to sleep half froze.” Grandpa turned to Eli. “You must be cold.”
    Eli’s teeth were chattering, but he didn’t want to leave.
    “Time for us to go back, too, Eli.”
    When they reached the road, a set of headlights came toward them. It was Pa’s pickup.
    Eli stepped into the road and waved his hands to flag down Pa. “You can’t go no further, Pa. The salamanders need to cross.” Eli looked at the pavement. “You already squashed two.”
    “Oh, fer cryin’ out loud.” Pa stuck his head out of the truck.
    “I would’ve dropped him off, Chet.” Grandpa cupped his hands to cut out the glare from the high beams. “Is it time already?”
    “It’s nearly ten.” Pa’s jaw was tight as he stared down Grandpa. “When was the last time a boy his age stayed up this late?”
    “When you were nine, Chet.” Grandpa lifted up his bucket. “It’s salamander night. Don’t you remember?”
    “It’s a school night. Get in the truck, Eli.”
    Eli looked at Pa, then up at Grandpa.
    “Go on, son,” Grandpa