Grampy Fernside's Arc

Chapter 11 of 16

Two mornings after the finch took his post, Grampy carried a fresh handful of millet down the path before sunrise. The bird sang his ordinary greeting from the copper pipe. Grampy set the millet on the slate dish and bent to check the moss. Something silver caught the low light. A slime trail crossed the cover and slipped under the edge. He lifted the corner. Three slugs sat on the compost, fat and patient, working toward the buried seeds. He counted four more trails leading in from the sweet peas. His back locked when he crouched, so he sat flat in the dirt. The seeds were half a finger down. A sprout pushing up would meet a mouth. He had one morning at most before the first green tips broke the surface. If the slugs found them then, nineteen seeds became nothing, and forty years of a promise ended in a wet chew. He hobbled to the shed and took down an empty glass jar. He picked the three slugs off the bed with a bent twig and dropped them in. They slid down the glass and curled together at the bottom. Three caught did not fix seven trails. He needed a guard who worked all night, not a gnome with a jar and a sore back. He limped to the ceramic mushroom ornament at the edge of the herb ring. A garden toad lived under it most summers, fed on whatever crawled through the rosemary and the pink-bloom garlic. Grampy tipped the cap back. The toad sat inside, round and blinking. "I have work," Grampy said. He carried the ornament to the secret bed and set it down at the head of the row. He tipped the toad out onto the moss. It squatted, took stock, and did not move. Grampy emptied the jar beside it. The toad's tongue snapped once. One slug was gone. It snapped twice more. Grampy watched the round belly settle lower on the moss. He walked the bed and picked off the rest of the slugs by hand, dropping each one within reach of the toad. By the time the sun cleared the fence, the moss was clean and the toad had not moved from its post. He rinsed the jar at the barrel and set it upside down on the slate. He tucked the mushroom ornament beside the bed so the toad had shade for the day. Then he weighted the moss corner with a stone against the sweet-pea side, where the trails had come in. He sat on the picnic table and pressed the cold cloth to his back. The finch sang from the pipe. The toad blinked at the moss. Under the cover, at the head of the row, one seed had split its coat overnight and pushed a pale hook toward the light.