Puddleful

The responsible “we” testifies to having seen a puddleful of hair, like snakes, produced from the decomposition therein of a cow’s tail, and, with great naiveté, wonders whether the development of organic life in hairs placed in water with their roots is a fact known to science.

“[…]By the way, I wonder where we can find any tadpoles?” “I know,” exclaimed Reed, rising quickly from the grass, on which he had again flung himself. “There’s a great puddleful of ’em up the road a piece; come along and I’ll show you.”

If we were to carry a jug of some unclean liquid, half as filthy as tobacco spittle, and from its spout pour the contents, here a little and there a good deal, after the manner in which the slaves of the weed eject from their mouths puddlefuls of the unsightly expectoration, we would be denounced as unclean.

A tuna can full of water can produce mosquitoes; a puddleful can produce more mosquitoes; a swamp can produce lots more mosquitoes; Northern Ontario, which boasts an abundance of water, produces enough mosquitoes to annoy everybody.