Daily picayune., 1908-08-14

for the marsh frogs, rambling chant slowly gathered volume. It swelled into@a chorus and soon swallowed all other noises of the night in a grand wave of sound which reverberated back and forth between the black for ests, circling like giant sounding boards upon either side of the marsh. The sound waves rose and fell like the breathing of surf. Once, in a Hull. a single voice, deep and rolling, left tue others and sounded several sororous notes, as' though leading the chant
 The old resident had been listening for that. He laid his hand suddenly upon the visitors shoulder and whis- pered eagerly: You heard it?"
 His companion nodded.
 That's the last of the Rockville quartette. said the old resident. as he rested his arms upon the top rail of the little causeway. and settled his pipestem comfortably in the dropping corner of his mouth.
 T know his voice all right I'd know it in a thousand That's Bill. the basso, out there.
 You surely must have heard of 'Padgett's Rockville Quartette'? Why. man, the fame of that little band spread for miles around and there's few in this part of the eastern shore who haven't heard it sing
 When old Abe Padgett came from down east to live in Rockville, he brought with him about the most com plete menagerie that was ever seen about these parts. His monkey was educated better than some of the folks who laughed at it, and the parrots could say about anything they wanted to, There was a ciphering pig and two white rats that could play on the plan ner-a real little one, you know, about as big as a harmonica.
 'Padgett had mania for training animals, and the more difficult they were to handle the better he liked it. He had been with a circus most all his life, but had become too old for the road. and had come to Rockville to wait around until time to shuttle of the coil
 Well, Padgett and his animal family settled down at the old Rutherford place, over there where you see that light at the end of the marsh They lived happily for while, and then dis aster overlook them. The climate, or maybe the malaria. proved too much for the menagerie, and one by one a little row of graves over on the brow of that hill marked the resting place Of Padgett's friends.
 The old man was all broken up by his loss. The neighbors offered him other pets-cats and dogs; but he didn't take any shine to them at all.
 Tt was while Padgett was listening to the marsh chorus one evening that he suddenly conceived an idea. He called it an inspiration, and began to perk up right away. After this he was away from home more than ever. When occasionally visitor would drop In, lusty halloo would bring Padgett splashing from the marsh, muddy and wet from head to foot but looking as happy as 12-year-old school boy on Friday evening" He al ways carried net and closed basket during his prowls, and some of his neighbors wanted to know If he was going 10 start a frog farm.
 "Along in the middle of the summer 1t was noticed that all of the best frog music was over on Padgett's shore. There was still some musical croaking at other parts of the marsh, but 1t sounded weaker than before, and was usually drowned out by the melodioSis chorus from Padgett's.
 Ray Slocum, the miller's son, sprang B sensation about the postoffice one day by saying that he had been up by Padgett's the evening before and had heard band playing somewhere around there, and had seen the old man Jumping around the yard waving his arms like mad, but saying not a word. Someone suggested that the place was haunted and that its pro- priet0r was out of his head.
 Curiosity began to get keyed up pretty high when one morning Padgett marched up to the postofiice and asked for his mail He hadn't been there since the ciphering pig died. There was quite number of letters, but Padgett paid little attention to them, showed them carelessly down in the tail of his coat and said to Perkins, the postmaster: I would like to rent your hall for next Saturday night, as l want to give concert there which will kinder shake up Rockville a bit, I reckon, the idee being new an origi- nal
 "Perkins and he fixed 1t up between them. and Padgett billed the town that same afternoon. The posters were short. home made and to the point As near as I can remember, they stat ed that the concert would be the great l est novelty of the age, and that i'm ported musicians would render all the familiar airs and many that were not so familiar. Ten cents admission would be charged. It is needless to Al