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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63992 ***</div>
<div class='tnotes covernote'>
<p class='c000'><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b></p>
<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
</div>
<div class='figleft id001'>
<img src='images/i_001.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
<div><span class='xxlarge'>THE REAL FAIRY FOLK</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div id='Frontispiece' class='figcenter id002'>
<img src='images/i_004.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘I FEEL THE WIND,’ CRIED RUTH, WITH BRIGHT EYES. ‘DEAR VOICE, ARE YOU THE WIND?’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class='titlepage dbox'>
<div>
<h1 class='c002'><i><span class='xlarge'>THE</span><br /> Real Fairy Folk</i></h1>
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c003'>
<div><i><span class='small'>BY</span></i></div>
<div><i><span class='large'>LOUISE JAMISON</span></i></div>
<div class='c004'><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></div>
<div><i><span class='small'>BY</span></i></div>
<div><i><span class='large'>JAMES M. GLEESON</span></i></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id002'>
<img src='images/i_titlepage-detail.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center'>
<div><span class='small'><i>NEW YORK</i> <i>GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</i></span></div>
<div><i>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</i></div>
<div class='c004'><span class='small'><i>MCMXII</i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
<div>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</div>
<div class='c004'>COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_006.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center'>
<div>THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
<div><i>To my Mother and Father this little book is lovingly dedicated</i></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='pbb'>
<hr class='pb c004' />
</div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>
<img src='images/i_009.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2>
</div>
<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'>
<tr>
<th class='c006'><span class='small'>CHAPTER</span></th>
<th class='c007'> </th>
<th class='c008'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>I.</td>
<td class='c007'>In the Old Willow Tree</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>II.</td>
<td class='c007'>Two Funny Gentlemen and What They Said</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>III.</td>
<td class='c007'>Ruth and the Wonderful Spinners</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_33'>33</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>IV.</td>
<td class='c007'>Mrs. Mosquito and Her Kin</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>V.</td>
<td class='c007'>Ruth Hears About Some Water Babies</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>VI.</td>
<td class='c007'>Ruth Goes to a Concert</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_82'>82</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>VII.</td>
<td class='c007'>Ruth Meets All Sorts and Conditions</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_100'>100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>VIII.</td>
<td class='c007'>Mrs. Tumble Bug and Others</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_118'>118</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>IX.</td>
<td class='c007'>Little Mischief Makers</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_134'>134</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>X.</td>
<td class='c007'>Some Queer Little People</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_148'>148</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>XI.</td>
<td class='c007'>Wise Folks and Fiery Ones</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>XII.</td>
<td class='c007'>The Honey Makers</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>XIII.</td>
<td class='c007'>The Most Beautiful of All</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_197'>197</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>XIV.</td>
<td class='c007'>Real Fairies</td>
<td class='c008'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_011.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div class='chapter'>
<h2 class='c005'>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
</div>
<table class='table0' summary='ILLUSTRATIONS'>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘I feel the wind,’ cried Ruth, with bright eyes. ‘Dear voice, are you the Wind?’”</td>
<td class='c009'><i><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></i></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<th class='c007'></th>
<th class='c009'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘Sometimes it seems as if it must be Fairyland all around, only I’m deaf’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_8'>8</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“Ruth, holding Belinda tightly, drew close to the edge of the brook”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_14'>14</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘How’s that?’ and with a splash a big green and brown frog landed on the stone at her feet”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_15'>15</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘I am a frog, of course, but my family name is Rana’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_16'>16</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“That nice fat toad in the garden”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_18'>18</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘I didn’t move, but my tongue <i>did</i>’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘I was soon swimming about with a lot of other tads, slapping tails, and having all kinds of fun’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“A loud splash and Mr. Rana’s long legs disappeared in the brook”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>“‘I’m right over here in the shade’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘The mother spins the cocoon of silk from her own body’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_38'>38</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘Why, it’s Daddy Long Legs’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘I made one of these pits and in the funnel end I lay in wait for ants’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_76'>76</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>The wise grasshopper</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_88'>88</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘My friends, there are ants and ants’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘Then there are ants who keep slaves’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_162'>162</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘Then there are ants who cut pieces from green leaves and carry them as parasols’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_163'>163</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>The house of the mound-builder ant</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_165'>165</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“Vespa Maculata”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>The Queen Bee and her bodyguard of drones</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_187'>187</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘Smart children, aren’t they?’ asked some moths”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_203'>203</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c007'>“‘I am the moon moth, the Luna’”</td>
<td class='c009'><a href='#Page_213'>213</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figleft id001'>
<img src='images/i_013.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
<div><span class='xxlarge'>THE REAL FAIRY FOLK</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>
<img src='images/i_015.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I<br /> <span class='large'>IN THE OLD WILLOW TREE</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>He prayeth best who loveth best</div>
<div class='line'>All things both great and small.</div>
<div class='line in32'>—<i>Coleridge.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Ruth climbed to her favourite perch
in the old willow tree, and settled
Belinda in a crotch beside her.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now,” she said, drawing a long breath,
“we will be cool and comfy.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Certainly if there was a cool spot to be
found on this hot August morning it was in
the shade of this big willow.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Her very own tree,” as Ruth always called
it, for, since she could climb at all, she had
loved to sit among its drooping branches and
<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>hear the leaves whispering together the
wonderful things, which she knew they were
telling each other, even though she could
not understand them.</p>
<p class='c012'>Then, too, she could look down into the
brook, and watch the doings of the queer
little people who made their home there.</p>
<p class='c012'>These, like all the tiny folk of the outdoor
world, were a source of never-failing interest
and wonder.</p>
<p class='c012'>In their company, Ruth was never lonely,
even though she had neither brother nor
sister, nor indeed any little boy or girl to
play with.</p>
<p class='c012'>Still it would be so much nicer if she could
only talk to the bugs and things. There were
such lots of questions she wanted to ask them.</p>
<p class='c012'>How she did wish that the funny old tumble
bugs would stop rolling their ball, and tell
her all about it. They never did, though.
They just kept at that ball as though it was
the most important thing in the world.</p>
<p class='c012'>Then she wanted to know what the bees
<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>whispered to the flowers as they buzzed
above them, and whether the butterflies
spoke to each other as they flew by in the
sunshine.</p>
<p class='c012'>There were the ants, too, always so busy,
and in such a hurry. How fast they could
run when any one upset their nest; and how
funny they looked carrying those queer white
bundles.</p>
<p class='c012'>Mother had called these bundles the ants’
babies, but Ruth thought them very odd
babies, and she wondered if they had to
be fed and bathed and put to sleep like human
babies.</p>
<p class='c012'>She wanted to know all about them, and
about the spiders too, and their wonderful
webs.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Just think what a chance Miss Muffet
had,” she said to Belinda, when both were
settled to her satisfaction in the willow-tree
perch. “Only a very friendly spider would
come up and sit down by you, and who knows
the interesting things it could tell. The
<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>idea of being afraid of a spider anyhow!
You might as well be afraid of that funny
old toad in the garden, and I don’t believe
he could hurt you if he tried. I guess he
doesn’t do anything but sleep.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth had been trying to talk to the toad
that very morning. He had looked so solemn
and so wise as he sat under the shade of a
big stone in the damp corner of the garden,
“but,” as she said, “he wasn’t any good at
all,” for he only looked at her, then drew a
film over his eyes, and went on swallowing
very hard.</p>
<p class='c012'>“He can talk, though, I know,” she said
to Belinda. “They can all talk in their
way. It sounds like noise to us, because
we can’t understand. Do hear them, Belinda?
What are they saying?”</p>
<p class='c012'>But of course Belinda could not answer.
She never said more than “mama,” in a
very squeaky voice, and you had to squeeze
her ever so hard to make her do that.</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth sighed softly, then, leaning forward
<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>with her elbow propped on her knee, and her
chin resting in the palm of her hand, she
listened to the flood of sound about her; the
hum and buzz that came from garden and
orchard, from field and meadow; thousands
of tiny voices, rising and falling and rising
again, as they told their fascinating life
stories, from every leaf and twig and grass
blade.</p>
<p class='c012'>“They are talking just as fast as they can,”
Ruth said again, “but I don’t know what
they are saying. Oh! if I only did. Why
don’t people learn their language instead of
German and French and lots of other old
things that aren’t any good? It would be
ever so much nicer, and they could find out
so many wonderful things, couldn’t they,
Belinda?”</p>
<p class='c012'>But, as usual, Belinda only stared at Ruth,
and said nothing.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>
<img src='images/i_020.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘SOMETIMES IT SEEMS AS IF IT MUST BE FAIRYLAND ALL AROUND, ONLY I’M DEAF’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>“Oh, dear,” said Ruth, “if you were only
alive, and could tell me things, you’d be ever
so much more interesting, but then maybe,”
she added, thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t understand
you any better than I do them. Maybe
doll language is different too. It is all so
puzzling. Sometimes it seems as if it must
be Fairyland all around, only I’m deaf.
I wonder if there’s a word that lets you in
so you can know about things, like ‘Open
Sesame’ in ‘The Forty Thieves.’ Oh, Belinda,
do you think there is?” And Ruth clasped
her hands together at the very thought.
“But we can’t find it out,” she added,
more soberly, “and so it wouldn’t be any
use.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Watch and listen! Watch and listen!”
said a voice so close to her ear that Ruth
jumped, and nearly fell to the ground.</p>
<p class='c012'>She looked about her expectantly, but
no one was in sight, either in the tree or
under it.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is very queer,” she said. “You can’t
talk, Belinda, and I don’t see a single person
anywhere.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is not so queer as you think,” the voice
<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>replied, as close to her ear as before. “You
cannot see me, but you can feel me.”</p>
<p class='c012'>A passing breeze had touched her cheek
and was softly ruffling her hair.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I feel the wind,” cried Ruth, with bright
eyes. “Dear voice, are you the Wind?
Why have you never talked to me before?
If you only knew how I have wanted some
one to talk to me, and tell me things! People
don’t seem to like to answer questions. They
haven’t time or something. But you must
know such a lot. The wind goes everywhere.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, I am a great traveller, but, child, the
marvellous things are not all far off. There
is a wonderland right here at home, if one
has the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the
heart to feel and understand.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth clapped her hands, and her eyes
danced.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I knew it! I knew it!” she cried eagerly.
“I told Belinda it was Fairyland all around
us; but, dear Wind,” she added, while a little
cloud filled her eyes, “I do see and hear
<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>lots of things, but I <i>can’t</i> understand, and I
<i>do</i> want to know all the whys and becauses.
Won’t you please, <i>please</i> tell me?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I may not do that, child,” was the answer,
“for each thing speaks in its own language,
and will tell its own story to those
who seek truly and earnestly. You are a
thoughtful child, and for that reason it will
be given to you to know those things which
you most desire to learn. Only remember,
‘Watch and be patient,’ and never forget the
password ‘Brotherhood,’ for even the lowest
creature has some rights to be respected.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The breeze passed on, softly singing through
the willow branches, but Ruth sat without
moving, her eyes wide with eager wonder.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I didn’t dream it,” she said at last in an
awed little whisper. “It was as real as
anything could be that you couldn’t see. I
suppose ‘brotherhood’ means not to be unkind
or cruel to things. Oh, Belinda, just
think of it: hearing what they say, the bees
and the butterflies and the dear little crickets
<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>and funny old grasshoppers,” and she snatched
Belinda to her and hugged her tight. “It
will be harder than ever to go into the house
now, won’t it?” she finished soberly. Then
she sat for a few minutes thinking, very quiet,
but very happy.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Kerchug—kerchug—kerchug,” called a
voice from the brook, and Ruth started so
suddenly she nearly dropped Belinda, and
caught a branch just in time to keep herself
from falling.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious,” she said, “how that scared me.
I do believe it was that big green and brown
frog. See him down there, Belinda? He
is just showing his head and his funny eyes
out of the water. Let’s get down close to
him, and maybe he’ll come out all the way.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_024.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_025.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II<br /> <span class='large'>TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN AND WHAT THEY SAID</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>Nothing useless is or low.</div>
<div class='line in30'>—<i>Tennyson.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>“To be sure I’ll come out,” answered
a croaky voice, as Ruth, holding
Belinda tightly, drew close to the
edge of the brook. “How’s that?” and with
a splash a big green and brown frog landed
on the stone at her feet.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now,” he added, swelling out his white
vest with an air of importance, “I am a frog,
of course, but my family name is Rana.
Please don’t forget it.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>
<img src='images/i_026.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“RUTH, HOLDING BELINDA TIGHTLY, DREW CLOSE TO THE EDGE OF THE BROOK”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>“Family name?” said Ruth, sitting down
on the edge of the stone. “I didn’t know
frogs had family names.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“There’s a great deal you don’t know,”
said Mr. Rana, in his decided way.</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_027.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘HOW’S THAT?’ AND WITH A SPLASH A BIG GREEN AND BROWN FROG LANDED ON THE STONE AT HER FEET”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Maybe there is,” agreed Ruth, “but it
isn’t very polite to tell me so.” Then, with
a sudden thought, she added quickly, “Why,
you are really talking.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course, I’m talking. Do you suppose
it’s the first time?”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>
<img src='images/i_028.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘I AM A FROG, OF COURSE, BUT MY FAMILY NAME IS RANA’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>“He’s dreadfully snappy,” Ruth whispered
to Belinda.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It isn’t my fault that people can’t understand,”
finished Mr. Rana, swallowing very
fast.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I wanted to understand,” declared Ruth
meekly. “I was sure you could tell me such
a lot of interesting things, and that nice fat
toad in the garden too. He is so——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You’d better talk to the fat toad, then,”
said Mr. Rana, looking very cross.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, dear,” sighed Ruth, “I didn’t mean
I’d <i>rather</i> talk to him. I do want you to
tell me things. All about yourself, please.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now you are showing your good sense,”
said Mr. Rana, as Ruth settled herself with
a ready-to-listen air. “Nothing can be more
interesting than my story; but excuse me one
second. I see Mrs. Mosquito. This morning
I ate her husband, and now——”</p>
<p class='c012'>His sentence was not finished, but Mrs.
Mosquito was; and Mr. Rana folded his
hands across his fat stomach and looked at
Ruth, while a big smile played about his
broad mouth.</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>
<img src='images/i_030.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“THAT NICE FAT TOAD IN THE GARDEN”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>“She’s gone,” said Ruth, in a slightly awed
tone, “and I know you’ve swallowed her,
but I wish you would tell me how you did it.
I didn’t see you move.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_031.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘<span class='sc'>i didn’t move, but my tongue DID</span>’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“I didn’t move, but my tongue <i>did</i>, and
it went so quick you couldn’t see it. When
you eat, you bring things to your tongue,
but when I eat, I send my tongue to my
dinner. It’s a simpler way, I think. My
tongue is rather wonderful too. It is fastened
<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>to my mouth in front, and rolled back;
besides, it has a sort of glue on the end that
catches whatever there is to catch. The
number of pests I eat in a day would astonish
you. Slugs, grubs, snails, mosquitoes, and—well,
what’s the matter? You don’t like
such things, I suppose. Tastes differ, you see.
Now, to tell my story. What do you think
I looked like when I was first hatched?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“A tadpole, of course,” answered Ruth.
“I’ve seen lots of tadpoles. They are funny,
wiggly things.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“They <i>are</i> lively fellows,” agreed Mr.
Rana, swallowing several times, while Ruth
silently watched the sides of his neck puff out.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Please tell me why you swallow so much,”
she asked at last. “You are not eating, are
you?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Mr. Rana smiled, and this time the smile
went all around his mouth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I swallow to breathe,” he answered. “I
can’t swallow air while my mouth is open,
and so I stop talking and shut it. Every
<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>time I swallow, the air sac on the side of my
neck fills out. That’s why my voice has such
a lovely croak. My poor wife hasn’t any air
sac, so her voice is never croaky.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But in the water——” began Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“In the water,” answered Mr. Rana, “I
take in air through my skin. It is very
porous. My skin I mean. It is really a
pleasure to tell you things. Now to get
back to the beginning, being a tadpole, or,
I should say, an egg. Looking at me now,
could you imagine that I was once a tiny egg?
It’s a fact, though. My mother laid her eggs
near some water rushes, and, as I said, these
eggs were but tiny specks, black specks
enclosed in a gluey case, which the water
made swell, until it looked like a mass of
jelly. I came from one of those specks, and
I tell you I was a lively fellow when I was
first hatched. Some people say tadpoles
are all head and tail, but there were other
parts to me—places for legs, and I know I
had two eyes and a mouth. Of course I
<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>made the most of life. A whole pond to
circle in seemed a mighty big world to me, and
I was soon swimming about with a lot of
other tads, slapping tails, and having all
kinds of fun. Indeed, we were always lively,
especially when we were trying to get away
from those who wanted us for dinner. There
were lots of them too.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Ugh!” said Ruth, screwing up her face.</p>
<p class='c012'>This displeased Mr. Rana.</p>
<p class='c012'>“A tadpole is very delicate eating,” he
said. “You have never tasted one, so you
cannot judge; but let that pass. <i>I</i> was not
eaten, as you can see for yourself.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am glad you were not,” said Ruth as Mr.
Rana stopped to swallow some air, “because
then I shouldn’t have known you.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>
<img src='images/i_035.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘I WAS SOON SWIMMING ABOUT WITH A LOT OF OTHER TADS, SLAPPING TAILS, AND HAVING ALL KINDS OF FUN’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>“Well, that’s a fact. Now let me see what
comes next. Oh, yes—my legs. Legs, you
must know, are very important affairs to a
tadpole, because when he gets them he isn’t
a tadpole any more; so you may be sure
I was happy when I saw mine beginning to
grow. At the same time, my tail became
shorter and shorter, until at last I had none
at all. I was really and truly a frog. After
this I was not obliged to stay in the water all
the time. I had lungs and could breathe air.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_036.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“A LOUD SPLASH AND MR. RANA’S LONG LEGS DISAPPEARED IN THE BROOK”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“But you do go in sometimes,” said Ruth.
“I’ve seen you.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course I do,” agreed Mr. Rana. “I
must keep my skin wet, and that reminds me
it’s pretty dry now, so I will have to leave
<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>you. Good-by for the present.”
And before Ruth could
say a word there was a loud
splash and Mr. Rana’s long
legs disappeared in the brook.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_037.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘I’M RIGHT OVER HERE IN THE SHADE’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, dear, he’s gone!”
sighed Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, and good riddance,”
croaked a voice that
was not Mr. Rana’s.</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth looked around
quickly.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It’s nice having things
talk to you,” she said,
“but it keeps you jumping.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Use your eyes, and
you wouldn’t
have to jump,”
went on the same
voice. “I’m
right over here
in the shade.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>My blood’s cold, and I can’t stand the hot
sun.”</p>
<p class='c012'>It was her friend the garden toad. Ruth
could see him plainly now. He looked more
puffy than ever, as he sat under the bushes,
swelling his leathery throat with importance.
“If my cousin can talk to you I guess I can
too,” he added. “I’m Mr. Bufo, and I’m
quite as interesting as he is.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was only too willing to agree to this,
though, as she whispered to Belinda, she
thought frogs and toads had very good
opinions of themselves.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I have a wife,” croaked Mr. Bufo when
Ruth had sat herself on the ground close to
him, “a worrying wife. Do you know it’s
a bad thing to have a worrying wife?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth didn’t know, but she nodded her head
in agreement.</p>
<p class='c012'>“A bad thing,” repeated Mr. Bufo. “In
the Spring, after Mrs. Bufo had laid her eggs,
she gave me no peace. Of course, like all
toads, she laid them in the water, but, instead
<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>of being reasonable about it, she was
always asking me how she was to know
them from the eggs Mrs. Rana and Mrs.
Urodillo had laid. Theirs were in the water
too.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Please, who is Mrs. Urodillo?” asked
Ruth. “I know Mrs. Rana is a frog.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Mrs. Urodillo is a water salamander,”
answered Mr. Bufo, not over pleased at
being interrupted. “Now where was I? Oh,
yes. Mrs. Bufo was afraid she wouldn’t
know her own eggs. Well, I tried to argue
with her.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Didn’t you lay yours in double strings?’
I asked, ‘and didn’t you with motherly care
enclose them in thin but strong tubes?’ Of
course she couldn’t deny it. ‘But I won’t
know my own tadpoles,’ she kept insisting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No wonder she was worried,” said Ruth.
“Any one would want to know their own
babies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Mothers in our family never do,” declared
Mr. Bufo. “They lay their eggs, and that’s
<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>the end of it. Mrs. Bufo knew that as well
as I did. She only wanted something to
worry about. All tadpoles are pretty much
alike to begin with, but they don’t end
alike. Toad egg tads always grow into
toads; frog egg tads become frogs, and salamander
egg tads will be salamanders and
nothing else.”</p>
<p class='c012'>All the while he talked Mr. Bufo had
stopped every little while to swallow, not
only air, but whatever in the way of insects
came within his reach. So of course Ruth
saw his tongue.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Your tongue is just like Mr. Rana’s,”
she said, after watching it for a few seconds.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Our tongues may be alike,” agreed Mr.
Bufo, “but there’s a vast difference in our
legs. His are too long for any use, and his
skin is so horribly smooth it gives me the
shivers just to look at it. Of course I know
I am not handsome, and that reminds me of
some lines that have been written about me.
Want to hear them?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>Then without waiting for an answer he
swallowed some air and began:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“I’m a clumsy, awkward toad,</div>
<div class='line'>And I hop along the road;</div>
<div class='line'>’Tis the only way we toads can well meander;</div>
<div class='line'>While in yonder marshy bog</div>
<div class='line'>Leaps my relative the frog,</div>
<div class='line'>Very near my aunt, the water Salamander.</div>
</div>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“And if you should ever stray</div>
<div class='line'>Near a slimy pool some day,</div>
<div class='line'>And along its grassy margin chance to loiter.</div>
<div class='line'>Do not pass it idly by,</div>
<div class='line'>For it is the spot where I</div>
<div class='line'>Was born a lively tadpole in the water.</div>
</div>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“I’m a homely, harmless thing;</div>
<div class='line'>I catch insects on the wing,</div>
<div class='line'>And in this I serve you all; it is my duty.</div>
<div class='line'>And now tell me which is best,</div>
<div class='line'>To be useless and well dressed,</div>
<div class='line'>Or useful, even though I am no beauty?”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>Mr. Bufo had scarcely finished, when his
mate hopped out from some nearby bushes.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’d be ashamed,” she said, in a very puffy
voice, “to sit there repeating that lovely
poetry, with such shabby clothes as yours
are. How many more times must I tell
you to change them?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>“It doesn’t matter about his clothes,”
said Ruth. “I think it is so lovely to hear
him talk.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You haven’t heard him as often as I
have,” puffed Mrs. Bufo, hopping almost
into Ruth’s lap. “Besides, his clothes are
a disgrace. They are not only faded and
dull, but they are actually beginning to
split up the back.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Are they?” croaked Mr. Bufo meekly.</p>
<p class='c012'>Then he drew a film over his eyes and
pretended to be asleep.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now look here,” said Mrs. Bufo, “you
can’t deceive me. That is only your third
eyelid. You are not asleep. Now do get
off those old clothes.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, if I must, I must,” croaked Mr.
Bufo, hopping away.</p>
<p class='c012'>“There, I’ve made him do it at last,” puffed
Mrs. Bufo, swallowing a passing fly. “It’s
a hard job, and I don’t blame him for getting
out of it as long as possible. He has to
twist and turn, and use first one leg and then
<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>another, until he is quite free from his old
suit, and then, tired as he is, he must eat it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Eat it?” repeated Ruth, screwing up her
face.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, eat it, and not a tooth to chew with
either. I can’t see why we haven’t teeth
like those horrid frogs, though, to tell the
truth, theirs are no good for chewing. They
only have them in their upper jaws, and they
point backward, too, like fish teeth. I can’t
see that they help much in chewing, but they
do help to hold what the frog wishes to
swallow, and, after all, we toads and frogs
are swallowers rather than chewers.”</p>
<p class='c012'>As she spoke, several flies went to prove
her words.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes,” she added with a big puff, which
Ruth took for a sigh, “we have our troubles
and worries from early Spring, when we leave
our holes, where we sleep all Winter, to the
time when frost drives us into our holes
again, and no one seems to think about the
work we do. The garden couldn’t have a
<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>better friend, for the bugs and harmful
insects we eat can’t be counted. Well,
there’s no use talking this way. I must go
to Mr. Bufo. He’ll need some cheering up,
I’m sure. One good thing, he won’t have
to make his new suit. He’ll find it all ready
under his old one.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, she does think of him, anyhow,”
thought Ruth as Mrs. Bufo hopped away.
“I hope she will talk to me again some day.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_044.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_045.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III<br /> <span class='large'>RUTH AND THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>She throws a web upon the air and soon</div>
<div class='line in2'>’Tis caught and lifted by the willing breezes,</div>
<div class='line'>Then, freed from trouble in her light balloon,</div>
<div class='line in2'>Our spinner travels wheresoe’re she pleases.</div>
<div class='line in30'>—<i>Edith M. Thomas.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Ruth was in the garden counting
colours among the hollyhocks when
a little breeze hurried by.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Come,” it said, kissing her cheek, “and
hurry; things are going to happen.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is my dear Wind,” cried Ruth, her
eyes growing big with expectation, and,
stopping just long enough to snatch up
Belinda, who of course would wish to go, too,
she followed where the little breeze led.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>This was to a lovely spot on the edge of
the wood, and one of the first things she saw
was a big round spider’s web on the branches
of a tall bush.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh,” she said, going up closer, “who
would ever think a spider could make anything
like that?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Indeed,” said a voice which made her
give a little jump, “who else but a spider
could spin a web, I’d like to know? You
haven’t any brains, I’m thinking.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, please excuse me,” said Ruth. “I
didn’t know you were there.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That’s because you don’t use your eyes
properly,” was the answer of the large,
handsome black and gold spider hanging
head down from the centre of the big
web.</p>
<p class='c012'>Her eight long, slender legs were outstretched
and rested by their tips on the
bases of the taut radii, and her eight eyes
were staring at Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I saw you as soon as you came,” she said.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>“I suppose you will stay to the meeting.
I’m to be chair-spider.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Chair-spider?” repeated Ruth, slightly
confused by those eight bright eyes. “And
please, what meeting?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, our meeting, of course. Mrs. Cobweb
Weaver says men always have a chairman
at their meetings, so why shouldn’t
spiders have a chair-spider, I’d like to know?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I suppose they should,” agreed Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course we should. Considering you
are a human creature, with only two eyes,
two legs, and no spinnerets, you really show
a great deal of sense. Now sit down on the
crotch of that little tree, then you will be
near me and can hear all I say. What’s
that thing you are carrying?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, it’s Belinda, my doll,” explained
Ruth. “I tell her everything. I think she
will like your—your—meeting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I don’t care whether she does or
not,” said Madame Spider. “Now our friends
are arriving, and as you can see, with even two
<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>eyes, they are all shapes and sizes. Long
legged, short legged, plump, thin, grave and
gay. All colours too—quite enough to satisfy
any taste, I should say.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth looked about her in wide-eyed astonishment.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I never knew there were so many kinds
of spiders,” she said at last, “or that they
had such lovely colours. I thought spiders
were mostly grayish or brownish.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That is because you haven’t used your
eyes, as I said before; but you are only like
others of your kind. Such ignorance! Because
some spiders are dull and colourless, most
people imagine that all are so. I suppose
they think, if they stop to think at all,
that all kinds of webs are spun by the same
kind of spider, and that all spiders spin
webs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Don’t they?” asked Ruth, with some
hesitation, for Mrs. Spider’s indignation made
her look quite fierce.</p>
<p class='c012'>“They do <i>not</i>,” was the decided answer.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“All spiders are spinners, but not all are
web makers.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth looked puzzled.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You see,” explained Mrs. Spider, “it
all depends upon the way they catch their
prey. Spider habits are as different as their
looks. Some like the sun, others prefer the
shade. Some live in the forest, and others
with the house people. Many make their
home in the bark of trees, and under stones.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’ve seen that kind,” interrupted Ruth,
eagerly, “and when you lift up the stone
they run awfully fast. Sometimes they have
a funny little gray bundle, just as the ants
carry their babies. Maybe it’s their babies
too. Is it?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, they will be babies if nothing
happens. Those gray bundles are cocoons
full of eggs. The mother spins the cocoon of
silk from her own body.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, now, I understand. They are spinners,
but they don’t have any web. Isn’t
that it?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>“Exactly. They do not need a web. They
spring on their prey when the prey isn’t
looking. We call them hunters, also runners.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, they <i>can</i> run,” said Ruth.</p>
<div class='figleft id005'>
<img src='images/i_050.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘THE MOTHER SPINS THE COCOON OF SILK FROM HER OWN BODY’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“The flower spiders are
not web spinners either,”
went on Madame Spider,
who seemed to like nothing
better than to talk. “They
live among flowers, and eat
the visiting insects. You
can see some of them over
there. Talk about colours!
They are gay enough, just
like flowers themselves.
Perhaps you can guess
why.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth thought a few
minutes.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well,” she said, “if they were the same
colour as the flower they couldn’t be seen so
easily. I saw something walk out of an ear
of corn once, and it looked like a kernel of
<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>corn on eight legs. It was awful funny.
Was that a spider?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very likely. We are wonderful enough
for anything. I suppose you have never
heard of the trapdoor spider and his silk-lined
burrow, with its little hinged door,
nor of the spider who lives under the water,
in a tiny silken house, which she spins herself,
and fills with air carried down, bubble by
bubble, from the surface. Don’t look as
though you didn’t believe me. It isn’t
polite. I am telling you the truth. Very
likely you’ll doubt me when I say that we
sail in balloons, of our own making, and cross
streams of water on bridges, which we can
fashion as we need them—that is, we
orb weavers do, for, after all, we stand at
the head of the spider clan. Did you know
I was an orb weaver?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I—I—haven’t thought about it,” said
Ruth, slowly, for the question had come
very suddenly, “but I’d like you to go on
telling me things. Do you always hang with
<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>your head down? I should think it would
make you dizzy.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dizzy? Whoever heard of such a thing?
Of course I keep my head down, and my toes
on my telegraph lines. Then I can feel the
least tremble in any one of them, and I’m
pretty quick to run where I know my dinner
is waiting. Sometimes I don’t hurry quite
so fast. That is when the line trembles in
a way which lets me know that something
big has been caught. Indeed, there are times
when I bite the threads around what might
have been my dinner, and let it go; for it is
wiser to lose a meal than run the chance of
being a meal.” And Mrs. Orb Weaver
winked, not with one eye only, but with all
eight. “Now it is time to talk to the company,”
she added, “as I am chair-spider.”</p>
<p class='c012'>She said the last words in a loud voice,
intended for all to hear; then she looked
around to see if any one objected.</p>
<p class='c012'>“They had better not,” she said to Ruth,
and in a louder voice, added: “My friends,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>we are not appreciated. Men talk about
the wonderful bees, the wonderful wasps,
the wonderful ants, but few of them say
anything about the wonderful spiders. Now
we are wonderful, too, and we are honest,
and we are industrious. We eat flies and lots
of other pests, and we do not hurt orchards,
or steal into pantries, or chew up clothes.
Indeed, we do man no harm at all. But
is he grateful? Tell me that. I’ll tell you
he isn’t. Ask Mrs. Cobweb Weaver if there
isn’t always some broom sweeping down the
nice web she makes. I wonder she doesn’t
hate a broom. No, my friends, man is not
grateful. Even those who call themselves
our friends are ready to pop us into bottles,
or boxes, whenever they get a chance. They
give us what they call a painless death in
the cause of science. Now we would rather
live in our own cause. At least I would.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Mrs. Orb Weaver had become so excited
that her whole web was shaking violently.</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was excited, too.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>“It’s rather horrid to do that way,” she
said, “but maybe people don’t know about
you. I didn’t until to-day. The wonderful
things I mean, and I want to know lots more.
How your web is made and—and—everything.
Please tell me.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, certainly,” answered Mrs. Orb
Weaver readily. “To begin with, my web
is made of silk.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Who didn’t know that?” snapped a running
spider.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I didn’t,” answered Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You! And who are you, pray?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Be quiet,” commanded Mrs. Orb Weaver.
“She is my guest, and anything she wishes
to know I shall be happy to tell her. Now,
to get on, our webs are made of silk, and the
silk comes from our own bodies, through
little tubes called spinnerets. It is soft at
first, but gets harder when it reaches the
air, just like caterpillar silk. We guide each
thread with our hind feet, making heavier
strands by twisting a number of fine ones together.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>Of course, we spin the foundation
lines first. They are the ones which fix the
web to the bush. Then the ray lines, those
like the spokes in a wheel. They are all
heavy strands, and only after they are
finished do we spin the real snare, the lines
which run around. They are very fine, and
are covered with a sort of glue, for they have
to catch and hold the flies and other insects
that come on the web. We orb weavers
are the only ones who have this glue.
No other spiders use it. They trust to
the meshes of the web to entangle their
prey.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But why don’t the sticky parts catch
you too?” asked Ruth, who had been listening
with eager attention. “I’ve seen you
run all over your web and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We never get caught. Of course not,”
finished Mrs. Orb Weaver. “And why?
That’s a question. The wise men don’t
know, and if we do, we are not telling. Now
I am getting hungry, so I think I will tell a
<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>little story, then we will adjourn. I am sorry there
isn’t time for Mrs. Funnel Weaver to speak.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But there is,” declared a large brown
spider, whose body looked as though it were
set on a framework of legs. “I mean to speak
too—if only to point out all those webs
in the grass.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, I’ve often seen webs like that,”
said Ruth. “They are lovely with dew on
them. But why do you call yourself a funnel
weaver?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t!” she snapped. “The men, who
think they know everything, gave me that
name, because at one side of my web is a
funnel-shaped tube. It is our way to escape
our enemies. We run through it into the
grass when something too big for us to
manage gets into our web.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I generally make my web in houses,”
said a small, slender-legged, light-coloured
spider.</p>
<p class='c012'>She spoke in a hurry, as though she was
<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>afraid some one might stop her before she
finished. “I have cousins who like fields
and fences and outbuildings, but our webs
are all the same pattern. Not so regular
as yours, Mrs. Orb Weaver, but very fine
and delicate.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, everybody knows you, Mrs. Cobweb
Weaver,” said a voice from a nearby twig.
“Now if you are speaking of legs——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We are not,” answered Mrs. Orb Weaver,
“and I should like to know how you came
here.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“On my legs of course. Don’t you think
they are long enough? And though I can
neither spin nor weave, I am your relation,
and I have as much right to be here as you
have. I——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, it’s Daddy Long Legs,” interrupted
Ruth, with a friendly smile of recognition.
“I like daddies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I am not saying anything about my
legs,” remarked a fat little spider, as Daddy
tried to bow to Ruth, “though I have eight
<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>of them. I usually travel in a balloon, which
I make myself. Oh, I tell you, it is fine to go</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“Sailing mid the golden air</div>
<div class='line'>In skiffs of yielding gossamer.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_058.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘WHY, IT’S DADDY LONG LEGS’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Poetry,” said a handsome spider, wheeling
back and forth on a silken bridge swung between
two bushes. “I could have learned
some too, but I didn’t know it was allowed.
Of course I can build bridges. Who is asking
that idiotic question? You?” And eight
glaring eyes were fixed upon Ruth. “Maybe
you don’t know that spiders were the first
bridge builders and when men suspend their
great bridges to-day they follow our ideas
and ways, without giving us the least credit;
but that’s the way with men.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>“Well, we can’t expect to regulate men,”
answered Mrs. Orb Weaver, “and, besides,
it’s time to tell my story, and then you
will know why we get our name, and why we
are such wonderful spinners. Now listen, all
of you:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Once upon a time——”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth chuckled contentedly. All nice stories
began, “Once upon a time.” “Please go on,”
she whispered eagerly.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Then don’t interrupt me,” said Mrs.
Orb Weaver, and she began again:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Once upon a time, ever so long ago, there
lived in a beautiful land called Greece a
maiden named Arachne. Arachne was not
only fair to look upon, but she could also
spin and weave in a fashion so wondrously
fine that all who saw her work said that the
great Athena herself must have been her
teacher. Now this surely was praise enough,
but Arachne was vain. ‘Nay,’ she said, ‘no
one has taught me, and gladly will I weave
with the great goddess herself, and thus prove
<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>the skill to be all my own.’ Her words only
shocked all who heard them, but Arachne
cared not, and again repeated her wish
to try her skill with Athena.</p>
<p class='c012'>“So it happened that as she sat spinning
one day an old woman, leaning on a staff,
stopped by her loom.</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Child,’ she said in a gentle voice, ‘a
great gift is yours.’</p>
<p class='c012'>“Arachne tossed her head, and answered
scornfully:</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Well do I know it, yet Athena dares not
try her skill with mine.’</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Dares not?’ repeated the old dame, in
tones that should have made Arachne tremble.
‘Dares not, say you? Foolish maiden, be
warned in time.’</p>
<p class='c012'>“But Arachne was too proud to yield, and
she still persisted, even though the old dame
had dropped her mantle, and stood revealed
as the great goddess herself.</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Be it so,’ said Athena, sternly, and both
began to weave.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>“For hours their shuttles flew in and out.
Arachne’s work was wonderful, but for her
theme she had chosen the weakness and the
failure of the gods. Athena pictured forth
their greatness. The sky was her loom, and
from the rainbow she chose her colours, and
when her work was finished and its splendours
spanned the heavens, Arachne realized that
she had failed.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Ashamed and miserable, she sought to
hang herself in the meshes of her web.</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Nay, rash maid,’ spoke Athena; ‘thou
shalt not die, but live to be the mother of a
great race, the most wonderful spinners on
earth.’</p>
<p class='c012'>“Even as Athena spoke, Arachne grew
smaller and smaller, until not a maiden, but
a spider, hung from that marvellous web.</p>
<p class='c012'>“And now, my friends,” finished Mrs.
Orb Weaver, “need I tell you that we are
the wonderful race of which Athena spoke,
and need <i>I</i> add that we have inherited
Arachne’s marvellous skill, and are truly the
<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>most wonderful spinners on earth? Now
I am hungry and the meeting is adjourned.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“So am I,” added Daddy Long Legs,
“not adjourned, but hungry, and, by the
way, do you imagine any one believes that
old story?”</p>
<p class='c012'>He winked at Ruth, and then moved away
as fast as his long legs would carry him.</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_062.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span></div>
<div class='chap'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_063.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV<br /> <span class='large'>MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“Thou art welcome to the town, but why come here</div>
<div class='line'>To bleed a fellow poet gaunt like thee?</div>
<div class='line'>Alas! the little blood I have is dear,</div>
<div class='line'>And thin will be the banquet drawn from me.”</div>
<div class='line in44'>—<i>Bryant.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>“That horrid mosquito,” said Ruth,
waking with a start, and slapping
her cheek.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Aha! you didn’t get me that time,”
answered a thin, high-pitched voice!</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth sat up. She had been asleep under
the apple tree, but she was quite awake now.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Where are you?” she asked, “and are you
really talking?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I seem to be,” answered the mosquito,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>“though you tried to finish me just now.
I bear no ill-will, though. I am quite used
to being an outlaw. What is more, I don’t
intend to be any better. I shall go on biting
people as much as I please. I must have my
meals as well as the rest of the world. People
seem to forget that fact.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But just biting people——” began Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It isn’t just biting,” put in the mosquito.
“It really isn’t biting at all. I have a sharp
little instrument to pierce the skin of the
fellow I choose for my dinner, and the best
kind of sucking pump to pump up his blood.
That’s the way I get my meals. It is different
with my mate. He is a harmless sort of
fellow. He can’t even sing, and he likes such
baby food as the nectar of flowers. Now
tell me why I am different from other insect
musicians.”</p>
<p class='c012'>She fixed her big eyes on Ruth, who moved
uneasily, and answered with not a little hesitation:</p>
<p class='c012'>“I—I—really don’t know.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>“I’m a female. That’s why. In all the
orders, so far as I know, the singers are males.
Naturally I am proud of being an exception.
Well, you didn’t know that. Do you know
why I don’t care for science?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is just like an examination,” thought
Ruth, and again she answered.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course you don’t,” said Mrs. Mosquito.
“Is there anything you <i>do</i> know? Well,
I suppose I must tell you. I don’t care for
science, because it interferes too much. Once
upon a time men were our friends. We
not only had nice juicy meals from them, but
we had their rain barrels as nurseries for our
children. Of course, what they said about
us, when we came too near them, was not
always complimentary, but a mosquito, attending
strictly to business, doesn’t mind a
little thing like that. But now come these
fellows who know so much, or think they
know so much. We carry malaria, they say,
whatever that is, and the rain barrel must
<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>go, because it helps to breed mosquitoes.
Not only that, these interfering fellows seem
to spend their time thinking up ways to finish
us. Well, I sting them every chance I get.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But alas! the rain barrel is going. I was
hatched in one of the few to be found in
these sad days. I was a lively baby, I can
tell you. Young mosquitoes are called wrigglers
and, true to my name, I wriggled for all
I was worth. Now, when you know that my
mother had laid something like three hundred
eggs, and all had hatched into wrigglers as
lively as myself, you can imagine the time
there was in that old rain barrel.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But why,” asked Ruth “are you called
wrigglers when you are young, and mosquitoes
when you are grown up?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why are you called baby when you are
born, girl when you are half grown, and
woman when you are quite grown?” replied
Mrs. Mosquito, and Ruth said no more.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now,” went on Mrs. Mosquito, “I should
like to tell you more about wrigglers, how
<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>they stand on their heads and breathe with
their tails, and how they shed their skins when
they become full-grown mosquitoes, but I
haven’t time. The others are coming.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Others?” repeated Ruth. “What others?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The members of the Diptera order of
course,” answered Mrs. Mosquito, with an
important air. “You see, I found you
sleeping under the tree and I knew you
wanted to learn about the things that are
worth while, and as we are very worth while,
I sent a friend to tell all the members of our
order to meet in this spot.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Exactly what that young mosquito told
me,” said Mrs. Hessian Fly, buzzing up
excitedly.</p>
<p class='c012'>She was a dusky-winged creature, scarcely
more than an eighth of an inch long.</p>
<p class='c012'>“What is the Diptera anyhow?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, you are one,” explained Mrs. Mosquito,
with a superior smile. “It is quite a tax
to know things for everybody,” she said to
Ruth, “but you see I am around men so
<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>much I learn a great deal. I once attended
a meeting of the men who think themselves
wise. I wasn’t invited, you understand, but
I went, and I attracted much attention too.
Well, this is what I heard: The audience
will please listen, it concerns you all:</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘The members of the order Diptera have
two gauzy wings and two thread-like organs
with knobs at the end in the place where
most other insects have a second pair of
wings. Their mouth is framed for sucking,
and sometimes for piercing. Only a few
make cocoons. Their larvæ are called maggots,
and they have no legs. Some are vegetable
eaters, some carnivorous, and many are
scavengers.’ They said all that about us,
and maybe it’s true, but I tell you every man
in that meeting felt my sting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t care what they say,” remarked
Mrs. Hessian Fly. “To be talked about
shows our importance, though I have never
doubted mine. My family is a Revolutionary
one, as my ancestors came over with the
<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>Hessians. Of course you have heard of
them?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, I am only interested in the people
who live now,” answered Mrs. Mosquito.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I live now,” said Mrs. Hessian
Fly, “and I am interesting enough for any
use. I don’t make galls like so many flies, but
simply lay my eggs in young blades of wheat,
and when my little red babies hatch, they
have only to crawl down and fasten themselves
to the tender stalk, just below the
ground. Don’t they love the sap, though?
A field of wheat looks pretty sick after they
have worked on it a while. Sometimes the
wheat midges help them and then it is good-by
to the wheat. Mrs. Wheat Midge, you
know, lays her eggs in the opening flower
of the grain, and her babies eat the pollen
and ovule. You may guess what happens
then.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I think it is real horrid to do that,” said
Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“And what do you know about it, pray?”
<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>retorted Mrs. Hessian Fly. “We must all
eat to live.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We certainly must,” said a house fly,
flitting up with a loud buzz. “I have just
escaped with my life. A cook wanted to
take it because I tried to lay some eggs on
her meat. What better place could a fly
ask, I’d like to know? If Mrs. Blow Fly had
been there, she would have put her eggs on
that meat, screen or no screen. She is a most
determined body and she can drop her eggs
through the finest mesh, if she makes up her
mind to do it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Is Mrs. Blow Fly that big, buzzing, blue-bodied
thing that is such a botheration?”
asked Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“She’s big and blue, and she buzzes, or
talks, with her wings, as we all do,” answered
Mrs. House Fly, with dignity, “but she isn’t
a thing. She’s a fly. There are hundreds
of different kinds of flies, I’d like you to
understand. The kind like me live in houses,
but some prefer stables. They seem to like
<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>to stay with horses and cows, and are rather
common. They have beautiful eyes, though,
and plenty of them. Would you believe it,
my head is nearly all eyes? I have thousands
of tiny ones in my two big ones, not to
mention the three single ones at the top of
my head.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious!” said Ruth. “No wonder it
is so hard to catch you. But doesn’t it make
you dizzy when you walk upside down,
and how do you keep from falling?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course we don’t get dizzy and it is
easy enough to keep from falling if you have
pads and fine hairs on your feet. They
just hold you to the place you are standing
on. Men seem to consider this quite a wonderful
thing. One of them has written some
poetry about it. This is how it goes:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“What a wonderful fellow is Mr. Fly,</div>
<div class='line'>He goes where he pleases, low or high,</div>
<div class='line'>And can walk just as well with his feet to the sky</div>
<div class='line'>As I can on the floor.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Say,” spoke up a slim, narrow-winged
creature with abnormally long legs, “I’m
<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>one of your relations, though I can’t walk
upside down.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You?” repeated Mrs. House Fly, contemptuously.
“Why, you can’t walk decently
right side up.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is true,” sighed the crane fly. “I
haven’t even the grace of Daddy Long Legs,
for:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>“My six long legs all here and there</div>
<div class='line'>Oppress my bosom with despair.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I don’t care about your legs,”
said Mrs. House Fly. “I was speaking of
my relations—my <i>smart</i> relations. All are
not smart. I have some who need only bite
the twig of a tree and lay their eggs there,
and what do you suppose happens? A
round ball grows over the spot and men call
it a gall, but it is really a tiny house for my
cousin’s babies. I have another cousin,
whose name is Cecidomyia strobiloides. It
is long for such a tiny creature, but she bears
up very well under it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I couldn’t ever pronounce it,” said Ruth.
“What does she do, please?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>“She flies to a willow tree in the Spring,
before the leaves are out, and with a spear
on the end of her body she cuts a gash in the
tip end of the bud, just where it is most
tender and juicy. She lays an egg in the
gash; then goes to another twig, and does
the same thing, until she has laid as many
eggs as she wishes. When her babies hatch,
they do not look at all like their gauzy-winged
little gray mother, nor do they care for sun
or air. In fact, they never stir from their
cells. They can eat, though, and the sap
of the tree is their food.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You all seem to think a good deal of
eating,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course. Isn’t that what we are
hatched for? But my cousin’s babies have
lost their appetites by the Fall, and then they
go to sleep. They wake up in the Spring,
and, strange to say, they have grown exactly
like their mother and are ready to lay eggs
on some more willow twigs. Very likely the
willow tree does not care to have them do it,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>for the twig where their cradle is does not
grow into a branch as the tree meant it should.
Instead, the small leaves just crowd upon
each other, until they look like a green pine
cone.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I hope it will never happen to my willow
tree,” said Ruth; “but please tell me more
things. They are very interesting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Interesting? I should say so. Indeed,
I could go on talking all day, and not tell
you one half the things we can do. But life
is too uncertain to waste it all in talking.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Life is certainly full of accidents,” buzzed
a big horse fly. “I’m here to tell Mrs.
Mosquito, if she is looking for the messenger
she sent out a while ago, she’d better make
up her mind never to see her again. She went
too near a horrid warty toad, and you can
guess the rest.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We can,” sighed Mrs. Mosquito. “If
it isn’t frogs, it’s toads and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Often it’s birds,” finished Mrs. Horse
Fly, “and they are the worst of all.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>“Such subjects remind me that I am
hungry,” said Mrs. Mosquito, “and I’m off
to find a juicy somebody for dinner. I think
I shall lay some eggs too.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I wonder if it was my toad who ate that
mosquito,” thought Ruth, as she watched the
audience fly away.</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_075.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_076.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V<br /> <span class='large'>RUTH HEARS ABOUT SOME WATER BABIES</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>An inner impulse rent the veil</div>
<div class='line'>Of his old husk, from head to tail</div>
<div class='line'>Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.</div>
<div class='line in38'>—<i>Tennyson.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Ruth lay in the grass, under the old
willow tree, watching a dainty little
creature with a pale green body and
four gauzy wings flashing with all the tints
of the rainbow.</p>
<p class='c012'>“What a beautiful dragon fly,” she said,
half under her breath. “I never saw one so
lovely before. I wonder if it is a dragon
fly. Do you think it is, Belinda?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am not a dragon fly,” came in answer
<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>from the dainty creature herself. “I’m a lacewing.
Why don’t you use your eyes? It’s
about time you learned something.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I do want to learn,” said Ruth meekly.
“I am trying all the time. I wish you would
tell me things. I thought you were prettier
than most dragon flies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Mrs. Lacewing looked pleased. “Now you
show your taste,” she said, “and I am quite
willing to help you. Just wait a little while,
and see what happens. Then if you don’t
like it, well——” And without waiting to say
more, or to let Ruth thank her, she was off.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I think she means to come back,” said
Ruth, expecting, she scarcely knew what,
“and it will be nice, I am sure. Oh, Belinda,
isn’t it just like living in Fairyland, since
we can hear what they talk about? There!
what did I tell you! It is Fairyland.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth added this with a rapturous little
squeeze, for just then she saw the lacewing
flying toward her, and with her many other
beautiful winged creatures.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>“The order Neuroptera, or the nerve wings,”
said the lacewing, flitting close to Ruth, “that
is some of them.” Then she introduced Ruth
as a friend, adding in a self-satisfied tone:
“She thinks I’m beautiful, and I quite agree
with her, don’t you?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Apparently the audience did. Of course
she <i>was</i> beautiful, and, besides, she carried
a scent bag which was not at all pleasant,
and they knew they were likely to have the
full benefit of it if they contradicted or
displeased her.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now we’ll begin,” she went on, with
the air of one who had settled all difficulties,
but the next second she stopped, and, looking
at a group of caddice flies, she asked sternly:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why are you here? and bless my wings,
if there aren’t dragon flies, and stone flies,
and, who would believe it, May flies. Now
you know that not one of you belongs to our
order.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, we belonged to it once,” answered
a caddice fly, speaking for all.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>“But I don’t understand,” began Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Then don’t say anything,” put in a dragon
fly, darting before her. “Keep quiet and
listen, and you’ll learn things. Besides, it
is very rude to interrupt people.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth felt snubbed, and tried to turn her
back on the dragon fly, but, as he seemed to
be everywhere at once, she found it impossible.</p>
<p class='c012'>The caddice fly was still speaking. “We
can’t always remember,” she said, “and
I should like to know what right the wise
men have to take us out of one order and
put us in a sub-order.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Right is the last thing they think about,”
spoke up a stone fly, “but I really care very
little whether I’m called Neuroptera, as I
was once, or Plecoptera, as I am now. Life
is just as uncertain and full of accidents.
Why, my friends, it is the greatest wonder I
lived to grow up.” She sighed and began
to fan her long, fat body with her broad
fore wings.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You know I was once a water baby.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>“Water baby?” repeated Ruth. “Wouldn’t
your wings——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No they wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Stone Fly,
“because I hadn’t any wings then. I was
homely, flat, six-legged, and just the colour
of the stone under which I spent most of my
young life, hiding. I had to hide, or the
boys would have found me and used me for
bait. Think of it! Bait!”</p>
<p class='c012'>And Mrs. Stone Fly, quite overcome, could
say no more.</p>
<p class='c012'>“We came to make a few remarks,” said
one of a swarm of May flies that had been
hovering about, “but we must go now. Life
is too short for talking.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Poor things,” said Mrs. Lacewing, “life
with them is indeed short. No wonder they
are called Ephemerida. Think of living only
for a day!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But they lived a long time as Nymphs,”
said the dragon fly, who was still darting
about, now here, now there, like a flash of
living flame. “I know, because they were
<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>water babies like me. They could eat too,
then, and the number of times they changed
their skins was a caution. Why, my friends,
they even change them after they leave the
water and have their wings. No other insect
does that.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now, my story, in the beginning, is
something like theirs. I, too, was born in
the bottom of the pond and, no doubt, I
played with some of you, or I may have
tried to make a meal of you. Well, if I did
I failed, and I shouldn’t be blamed for the
sins of my youth. All of us eat when we
can get the chance, and there’s no use in
being sorry for the dinner. I suppose you
would like to hear how I managed to get
into the pond?” He looked at Ruth, who
nodded her head, though she was still laughing
at the idea of being sorry for a dinner.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You see,” explained Mrs. Lacewing, “the
dinner might be your nearest relation.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Just so,” agreed the dragon fly. “Now
my mother, for of course I had a mother,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>though like most pond people I never knew
her——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do get to the point,” said an ant lion
impatiently; “we are all growing old.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, the point is my mother,” answered
the dragon fly, undisturbed, “but first I
should say that I no longer belong to the
order Neuroptera, but to the sub-order
Ordonata. It means something about a
tooth, but if I have any teeth, I don’t know it.
Now to get back to the point: my mother
flew down to the water one day, and when
she left it there was a cluster of small yellow
eggs floating on the surface. I came from
one of those eggs, and I didn’t look like a
dragon fly, I can tell you. I had six tiny
spider-like legs, but not a sign of wings, and
when I breathed it was not as I do now, like
all perfect insects, through openings on each
side of my body. I had gills, and a tube
at the end of my body brought fresh water
to them. This tube was a funny affair.
It really helped me along, for when I spurted
<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>water through it I was pushed forward.
Then I had a wonderful mouth, with a
long under lip, that I could dart out and
catch anything within reach, while I did
not need to move my body at all.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Just like frogs and toads!” cried Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Not at all,” answered the dragon fly.
“They only send out their tongues. I send
out my whole under lip. If you could only
keep quiet you would not show your ignorance
so plainly.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Once more Ruth was snubbed, and the
dragon fly continued:</p>
<p class='c012'>“In time I became a pupa.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth looked the question she dared not ask.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’ll explain,” said the dragon fly, amiably.
“Larva—that’s what I was at first—means
mask, or something that hides you. You
will find out in time, if you do not know
now, that the larva of an insect is really a
mask which hides its true form. The plural
of the word is larvæ. Now pupa, plural
pupæ, means baby. It is usually the state
<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>of sleep in which the larva lies after spinning
its cocoon or cradle, but in my case it didn’t
suit at all. Dragon flies, far from sleeping
in the pupa state, seem to grow more active,
and their appetites are larger. Indeed, I
will say right here, everything that came my
way, and was not too big, went into my
mouth. In fact, I finally reached my limit
and burst.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious!” cried Ruth in a shocked tone.
“How <i>did</i> you get yourself together again?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, you see, the whole of me didn’t
burst. I simply grew too big for my skin,
or my pupa case, as the wise men call it, and
it cracked right open. I was climbing on a
water plant when this happened, for all at
once I had felt a longing to leave the water
and get to the open air. My first effort
was to get rid of the useless old shell which
still clung to me, but I had quite a tussle before
I could do so, and afterward I was very weak
and tired. But the result was worth all my
labour, for I found myself with these four
<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>wings, and the rest of my beautiful body, and
I needed only to dry myself before sailing
away on the wind, the swiftest thing on
wings, and the most renowned mosquito
killer on record. Of course, my legs aren’t
arranged for walking. Why should they be?
All six of them go forward, as if they were
reaching for something, and so they are,
reaching for something to eat. Woe betide
any insect I start after. I catch him every
time. I ought to, for I have thousands of
eyes, and I can fly forward, backward, or
any old way. I never stop to eat my
dinner either. I hold it, and eat it as I go.
Now if I had time, I would tell you how the
children of Japan make a holiday, and go
out to catch us for pets, and how they sing
pretty songs to us and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is about time you stopped,” interrupted
Mrs. Ant Lion. “You have tried our patience
long enough, and I mean to speak
this very minute. I’ve been told I am
much like the dragon flies,” she added to
<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>the company, “but my babies are not at all
like theirs. They do not belong to the water,
and I am glad of it. I’m tired of water
babies. I’ve heard so much of them to-day.
My mother had the good sense to lay her
eggs in sand, and I shall do the same. I
was hungry from the minute I was hatched,
and I would have run after something to eat
right away, only I found I couldn’t. My
legs were fixed in such a way I had to walk
backward.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Backward?” echoed Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, backward. So there was nothing
to do but to dig a trap for my dinner, and
I set about it pretty quick. No one showed
me how, either. I simply used my shovel-shaped
head, and before long I had made
quite a pit, broad and rounded at the top,
and sloping to a point like a funnel at the
bottom. You have seen them, of course?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I think I have,” answered Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“They are not hard to find if you keep
your eyes open,” went on the ant lion.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>“Well, as I said, I made one of these pits,
and in the funnel end I lay in wait for ants.
Soon one came along, slipped over the edge,
as I expected, and tumbled right into my
open mouth. Nor was she the only one.
Some were strong enough to turn, even while
they were slipping, and start to crawl up
again, but I just heaped some sand on my
head and threw it at them, and down they
would come. My aim was always good, so
were the ants, though I only sucked their
juice. Of course I did not leave their skins
around to frighten away other ants. I
piled them on my head, and gave them a
toss, which sent them some distance away.
After a time I stopped eating, and made a
cocoon. Then I went to sleep!—for many
days—during which I changed wonderfully,
as any one must know who has seen ant
lion babies and now sees me. This is all of
my story, and I suppose we will hear about
another tiresome water baby.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>
<img src='images/i_088.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘I MADE ONE OF THESE PITS AND IN THE FUNNEL END I LAY IN WAIT FOR ANTS’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“You shall hear about a water baby,”
replied Mrs. Caddice Fly, waving her antennæ
by way of salute, “but tiresome will
do for your own homely children. I will
begin by saying that, with the accidents
of life, it is a wonder that any of us are here.
When we caddice flies were hatched we were
soft, white, six-footed babies. We were
called worms, though we were not worms.
Think of it! Soft bodied, with not very
strong legs, white, and living at the bottom
<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>of the pond. Could anything be worse?
No wonder we seemed to do nothing at
first but try to get away from things that
wanted to eat us. I tell you, pond life is
most exciting. After a while the front part
of our bodies and our heads began to turn
brown, and, as the rest of us was white, and
seemed likely to stay so, we all decided to
make a case or house to cover our white part.
So we set to work and of bits of sticks, tiny
stones, and broken shells, glued together with
silk from our own bodies, we made these
cases. True, many of us went down the throat
of Belostoma, the giant water bug, before we
had finished, but those of us who didn’t
crawled into our little houses, locking ourselves
in by two strong hooks which grew
at the end of our bodies. We could move
about, but of course we carried our houses
with us and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“How ridiculous!” said Mrs. Ant Lion.
“Why didn’t you stay still?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Because we didn’t wish to,” answered
<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>the caddice fly. “We had to eat, and we
had to get away from those who wished to
eat us. At last we went to sleep, after first
spinning a veil of silk over our front and back
doors. I can’t answer for the others, but
when I awoke I tore open my silken door,
threw aside my pupa skin, and found I had
wings. Since then I have had a new life,
but even that has its enemies, and one never
knows what will happen.”</p>
<p class='c012'>With which doleful saying Mrs. Caddice
Fly sailed away to the pond to lay some eggs
among the water plants.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dear me,” said Mrs. Lacewing, “we seem
to need something cheerful after that. I
am glad I never lived in the water, if it makes
one so blue. Now I shall tell you what my
babies <i>will do</i>, not what I <i>have done</i>. Of
course it is the same thing, but it is looking
forward rather than to the past. After
this meeting is over I shall lay some eggs,
on just what plant I haven’t yet decided,
but it will be in the midst of a herd of aphides.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>Be sure of that. Aphides are plant lice,”
she explained, seeing the question in Ruth’s
eyes. “You will learn more of them later.
Now as to the way I shall lay my eggs:
First, from the tip of my body I shall drop
a thick gummy fluid, and draw it out into
a long, stiff, upright thread, and upon the
end of this thread I shall fasten an egg.
I shall lay a number of eggs in this way, each
on its own pole, so to speak. Some people
may think my way odd, but it is very wise.
A lacewing knows her children. They are
not beautiful. Such short-legged, spindle-shaped
things couldn’t be pretty, but they
are sturdy, and they have an endless appetite.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I should think they would feel lonely on
those ridiculous poles,” said Mrs. Ant Lion.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Not at all. They are not there long
enough to feel lonely. They are in too
great a hurry for dinner. They are hungry,
with a big H. Now just suppose I should
lay my eggs as the rest of you do, ever so
<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>many together, what do you think would
happen? I will tell you in a few words.
The dear child who came out first would
eat all his unhatched brothers and sisters.
He doesn’t, only because he can’t reach them.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It’s a wonder he doesn’t eat his pole,”
said Ruth, her face showing what she thought
of such babies.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, it is,” agreed Mrs. Lacewing, “but,
strange to say, he doesn’t seem to care for
it. Indeed, he leaves it as quickly as he can,
and goes hunting. Of course he needn’t
hunt far, for he is in the midst of aphides.
Every mother looks out for that, and really
it is quite a pleasure to see him suck the juice
from aphid after aphid, holding each one
high in the air in his own funny way. So
you can see why lacewing babies are friends
to the farmer and the fruit grower, for aphides
kill plants and trees, and young lacewings
kill aphides. They can eat and eat and eat,
and never grow tired of aphides. Indeed,
they really deserve their name—aphislion.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>When they do stop eating it is to fall
into their long sleep, but first they weave a
cocoon as beautiful as a seed pearl, in which
they change into a most lovely creature—one
like me. Now our meeting is adjourned,
and I hope a certain person has learned a
few things.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, ever and ever so many, thank you,”
answered Ruth gratefully.</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_093.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_094.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI<br /> <span class='large'>RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>Oh, sweet and tiny cousins that belong,</div>
<div class='line'>One to the fields, the other to the hearth,</div>
<div class='line'>Both have your sunshine.</div>
<div class='line in38'>—<i>Leigh Hunt.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Ruth and Belinda were crossing the
meadow, when a big grasshopper
made a flying leap, and landed on
Belinda’s head.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do excuse me,” he said; “I missed my
aim. No one hurt, I hope, or frightened?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, no,” answered Ruth. “Belinda is
real sensible; she isn’t afraid of anything,
and I am just as glad—as <i>glad</i>—to see you.
Maybe you will——”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>Ruth hesitated, hoping he would know what
she meant to say. She was sure he could
tell her a great many things, if only he would.
He was so polite and nice; besides, he looked
very wise.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I suppose you’re going to the concert,”
said Mr. Grasshopper, after waiting a second
for Ruth to finish her sentence.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Concert?” she repeated, opening her eyes
wide. “What concert?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why the Straightwings’ Concert. They
give one every sunny day in Summer. Didn’t
you know that? Dear me, where were you
hatched and where have you been living
since? Well, why do you stare at me so?
Don’t you like my looks?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, yes,” Ruth hastened to answer.
“You look very nice—something like a
little old man.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’ve heard that before, and there’s a
story about it. Shall I tell it?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, please; I just love stories.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very well. Once upon a time, long,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>long ago, there lived in Greece a beautiful
young man named Tithonus. Now it
chanced that Tithonus loved Aurora, the
Goddess of the Dawn.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Greece?” said Ruth. “Why, that’s where
Arachna lived, the one who turned into a
spider, you know?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do you want to hear my story or don’t
you?” asked Mr. Grasshopper, sharply.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I do want to hear it. I really do.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very well, then, don’t interrupt me again.
As I was saying, Tithonus loved Aurora, and
every morning he would lie in the meadow
and wait for her coming. Then the fair
goddess would give him her sweetest smiles.
But one day Tithonus grew pale and ill, and
all the love of Aurora could not make him
well again. ‘Alas!’ he cried, ‘I am mortal,
and I must die.’ ‘Nay,’ answered Aurora,
‘you shall not die, for I will win for you the
gift of the gods.’ And, speeding to the
mighty Jupiter, she begged that Tithonus
might be as a god, and live forever. So
<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>for a while they were happy together, but as
the years passed Tithonus grew old and
bent, for Aurora had forgotten to ask that
he might always be young. Grieving much,
Tithonus lay under the shadow of the trees
and sighed through the long days.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Ah, my Tithonus,’ whispered Aurora,
‘I love you too well to see you thus unhappy.
No more shall you be sad or bend beneath
an old man’s weakness, but, as a child of
the meadow, happy and free, you shall sing
and dance through the golden hours.’ In
that moment Tithonus became a grasshopper,
and ever since then his descendants have
danced and sung in the sunshine. That’s
the end of the story. I might have made it
twice as long, but Summer is so short, and
I want to dance.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It was a very nice story,” said Ruth,
“but do you really dance?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course, our kind of dancing.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But don’t you do lots of other things
too?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>“Yes; we give concerts, and we eat. We
are hatched with big appetites, and a strong
pair of jaws, and we start right in to use
them on the tender grasses around us. We
only follow our instincts, though men call
it doing damage. You eat, don’t you?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, yes, but I don’t eat grass, you
know.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Because it isn’t your food. You see it’s
this way: In the kingdom of nature all
creatures have a certain work to do, and each
is exactly fitted for its place, for all are governed
by laws more wonderful than any man
has made. Not that I wish to speak lightly
of man, he is good enough in his place, but
he is apt to think himself the whole thing,
and he isn’t. Maybe he doesn’t know that
for every human creature on earth there
are millions of plants and animals.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh,” said Ruth, “really and truly?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Really and truly. You couldn’t begin
to count them, and do you know, if the earth
was to grow quite bare, with only one living
<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>plant left on it, the seeds from that one
plant could make it green again in a very
few years. But if certain insects were left
without other creatures to eat and keep
them down, the poor old earth would soon
be bare once more. So you see there must
be laws to fix all these things. Nature balances
one set of creatures against the other,
so there will not be too many of any kind.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth had listened in open-eyed astonishment.
Surely this was a very wise grasshopper.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You know a great deal,” she managed
to say at last.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, I do,” was the answer. “I heard
two men say the things I’ve just told you.
They were walking across this meadow,
and I listened and remembered. You see, I
believe in learning even from men. But
do listen to the concert—we are right in
the middle of it.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>
<img src='images/i_100.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>THE WISE GRASSHOPPER</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>They certainly <i>were</i> in the middle of it.
The zip, zip, zip, zee-e-ee-e of the meadow
grasshoppers seemed to come from every
part of the sunny field, while the shorthorns,
or flying locusts, were gently fiddling
under the grass blades, their wing covers
serving for strings, and their thighs as
fiddle bows, and the field crickets, not to be
outdone, were scraping away with the finely
notched veins of the fore wings upon their
hind wings.</p>
<p class='c012'>The longhorns were also there, some in
green, others in brown or gray, all drumming
away on the drum heads set in their fore
wings.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You would hear katydid too,” said Mr.
Grasshopper, “only he refuses to sing in
the day. He hides under the leaves of the
trees while it is light, and comes out at
night. If you think <i>me</i> wise, I don’t know
what you would say of him. He is such a
solemn-looking chap, always dressed in green,
and his wing covers are like leaves. You
might think him afraid if you saw him wave
his long antennæ, but he isn’t. He is curious,
that’s all. It is a high sort of curiosity, too,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>like mine—a wish to learn. I suppose you
know we don’t make our music with our
mouths?” he asked suddenly. “Well, that
is something,” he added, as Ruth nodded
“Yes.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I sing with the upper part of my wing
covers, but my cousins, the shorthorns, sing
with their hind legs. Why do you laugh?
Aren’t legs as good to sing with as anything
else?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I—I suppose so,” said Ruth. “It
sounds funny, because I am not used to that
kind of singing.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Just it. Now I shall tell you a few more
facts about us. We belong to the order of
the Straightwings, or the Orthoptera, as the
wise men call it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Will you please tell me what that means?”
asked Ruth. “Do all insects belong to something
ending in tera? Most everything
I have talked to does except toads and
spiders.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“And they are not insects,” said Mr.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>Grasshopper. “Not even the spiders. The
word insect means cut into parts, and all
insects have three parts, a head, and behind
that the thorax or chest, and the abdomen.
Then, too, they always have six jointed legs.
Now maybe you have noticed that spiders
are not built on this plan? There are only
two parts of them. The head and thorax
are in one. It is called the cephalothorax.
I’d feel dreadfully carrying such a thing
around with me, but the spiders do not seem
to mind it. Their other part is their abdomen.
I heard a little boy say it was like a squashy
bag; and between ourselves that is about
what it is. Of course you know that spiders
have eight legs and that alone would settle
the question. True insects never have but
six. Now as to the orders: All insects are
divided into groups, and it is something about
the wings which gives them their names.
That is why they all end in ptera, because
ptera comes from pteron, a word which
means wing. It isn’t an English word, you
<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>know, but is taken from a language called
Greek.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth listened very patiently. If she had
heard all this in school it would have seemed
very dry, but when a grasshopper is telling
you things it is of course quite different.</p>
<p class='c012'>“But I am sure I can never remember it
all,” she said.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Ah, yes, you can. Remembering is easy
if you only practise it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, that’s like the White Queen,”
cried Ruth. “She practised believing things
till she could believe six impossible things at
once, before breakfast.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t know the person,” said the grasshopper.</p>
<p class='c012'>“She lived in the Looking Glass Country,”
began Ruth, but Mr. Grasshopper was not
listening.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You have met the Diptera, or Two Wings,”
he said. “That’s easy. Then you’ve met the
Neuroptera, or Nerve Wings. That’s easy
too. And now you have met the Orthoptera,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>or Straightwings, meaning me, and if
I’m not easy, I should like to know who is.
You see our wings are——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Wings?” said Ruth in surprise.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course. Look here,” and opening
his straight wing covers, Mr. Grasshopper
showed as nice a pair of wings as one could
wish to possess. “Not all of us have wings,”
he added, folding his own away, “but those of
us who have not live under stones. Our
order includes graspers, walkers, runners,
and jumpers. Not all are musicians. The
graspers live only in hot countries. Maybe
you have seen the picture of one of them—the
praying mantis he is called, just because
he holds up his front legs as if he were praying.
But it isn’t prayers he is saying. He is
waiting for some insect to come near enough
so he may grab and eat it. That will do for
him. Next come the walkers. The walking
stick is one, and he isn’t a good walker either,
but the stick part of the name fits him.
He is dreadfully thin. There is one on
<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>that twig now, and he looks so much like the
twig you can scarcely tell which is which.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, so he does,” said Ruth, poking her
finger at the twig Mr. Grasshopper pointed
out. “Isn’t he funny?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Indeed,” grumbled the walking stick.
“Maybe you think it polite to come staring
at a fellow, and sticking your finger at him,
and then call him funny, but I don’t. I
want to look like a twig. That’s why I am
holding myself so stiff. I have a cousin in
the Tropics who has wings just like leaves.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes,” added the grasshopper, “and his
wife is so careless she just drops her eggs
from the tree to the ground and never cares
how they fall.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, if that suits her no one else need
object,” snapped the walking stick. “I believe
in each one minding his own business.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“An excellent idea,” said Mr. Grasshopper.
“Now let me see, where was I? Oh! the
runners; but you’ll excuse me, I will not
speak of them at all. They include croton
<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>bugs and cock roaches, and it is quite enough
to mention their names. With the jumpers
it is different. They are the most important
members of the order. I’m a jumper, I am
also a true grasshopper. You can tell that
by my long slender antennæ, longer than
my body. For that reason I am called a
longhorn, but my antennæ are really not
horns.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t see how any one <i>could</i> call them
horns,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“No more do I, but some people have queer
ideas about things. Well, I don’t care much.
There is my mate over there. Do you
notice the sword-shaped ovipositor at the
end of her body? She uses it to make holes
in the ground and also to lay her eggs in the
hole after it is finished. Yes, she is very
careful. Her eggs stay there all Winter, and
hatch in the Spring, not into grubs or caterpillars,
or anything of that sort. They will
be grasshoppers, small, it is true, and without
wings, but true grasshoppers, which need
<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>only to grow and change their skins to be
just like us. And I’m sure we have nothing
to be ashamed of. We have plenty of eyes,
six legs, and ears on our forelegs, not like you
people who have queer things on the sides
of your heads. Such a place for hearing!
but every one to his taste. Well, to go on,
we have wing covers, and lovely wings under
them, a head full of lips and jaws, and a jump
that <i>is</i> a jump. What more could one wish?
Do you know what our family name is?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth didn’t know they had a family name,
so of course she could not say what it was.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is Locustidae,” said Mr. Grasshopper,
answering his own question. “Funny too,
for there isn’t a locust among us. Locusts
are the shorthorned grasshoppers—that is,
their antennæ are shorter than ours. They
are cousins, but we are not proud of them.
They are not very good.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No one is asking you to be proud,”
said a grasshopper, jumping from a nearby
grass blade. She had a plump gray and green
<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>body, red legs, and brown wings, with a
broad lemon-yellow band.</p>
<p class='c012'>“What’s the matter with me?” she demanded.
“I guess you don’t know what
you are talking about. It’s the Western
fellow that is so bad. We Eastern locusts
are different.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I suppose you are,” agreed the
longhorn. “I know the Western locusts
travel in swarms and eat every green thing
in sight. They are called the hateful grasshoppers.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No one can say that our family has
ever been called hateful or anything like it,”
said a little cricket with a merry chirp. “We
are considered very cheery company, and
one of the sweetest stories ever written was
about our English cousin, the house cricket.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am sure you mean ‘The Cricket on the
Hearth,’” said Ruth. “It is a lovely story,
and I think crickets are just dear. Are you
a house cricket too?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, I belong to the fields, and I sing all
<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>day. Sometimes I go into the house when
Winter comes and sing by the fire at night,
but my real home is in the earth. I dig a
hole in a sunny spot and Mrs. Cricket lays
her eggs at the bottom, and fastens them to
the ground with a kind of glue. Sometimes
there are three hundred of them, and you
can imagine what a lively family they are
when they hatch.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I should like to see them,” said Ruth,
for it was quite impossible for her to imagine
so many baby crickets together.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, it is a sight, I assure you,” answered
the little cricket. “Did you ever come
across my cousin the mole cricket? She is
very large and quite clever. She makes a
wonderful home with many halls around her
nest. She is always on guard too so that no
one may touch her precious eggs. Then I
have another cousin, who doesn’t dress in
brown like me, but is all white. He lives on
trees and shrubs and doesn’t eat leaves and
grass as we do. He prefers aphides. You can
<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>hear him making music on Summer evenings.
We crickets seldom fly. We——”</p>
<p class='c012'>The sentence was not finished, for just then
a long droning note grew on the air, increasing
in volume, until it rose above the meadow
chorus.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh!” cried Ruth, spying a creature with
great bulging eyes and beautiful, transparent
wings, glittering with rainbow tints, “There’s
a locust! Isn’t he beautiful, Belinda? Maybe
he will tell us some things. Oh, Belinda,
aren’t we in luck?”</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_111.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_112.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII<br /> <span class='large'>RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS AND CONDITIONS</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>The shrill cicadas, people of the pine,</div>
<div class='line'>Make their summer lives one ceaseless song.</div>
<div class='line in40'>—<i>Byron.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>“A locust, indeed,” said the newcomer,
and Ruth could see plainly
that he was not pleased. “It does
seem to me you should know better than that.
Can’t you see I have a <i>sucking</i> beak and not
a <i>biting</i> one, like the grasshopper tribe?
Besides, my music isn’t made like theirs.
No faint, fiddly squeak for me, but a fine
sound of drums.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I think I’ll move on,” said Mr. Grasshopper,
and Ruth could see that he was quite
<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>angry. She turned to look at the cricket,
but he was far across the field, fiddling to
his mate.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I wish you wouldn’t go,” she said to the
grasshopper. “You have been so nice to
me and I have learned ever so much from
you.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, I dare say,” was the answer. “More
than you will learn from some people I could
mention, but I really must leave you. My
mate wants me.” And a flying leap carried
him quite away.</p>
<p class='c012'>“There, we are rid of the old grandfather,”
said the cicada, “and now what can I do for
you?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Tell me your real name if it is not locust,”
answered Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It certainly is not locust. I’ve been
called a harvest fly, though I am not a fly
either. I’m a cicada, and nothing else, and
I belong to the order of bugs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“And what kind of tera is it?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Tera?” repeated the cicada, looking at
<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>her with his big eyes. “Oh, yes, yes, I
understand. You mean our scientific name.
It is Hemiptera, meaning half-wings. I know
we have some objectionable members, but I
don’t have to associate with them, and I
rarely mention their names. I have a cousin
who lives in the ground seventeen years.
Think of it! Of course he is only a grub
and doesn’t care for air and sun. I lived
there two years myself, but I was a grub
also then. You see my mother put her eggs
in the twig of a tree, and when I came out
of one of them I wanted to get to the ground
more than I wanted anything else, so I just
crawled out to the end of the branch and
let go. Down I went, over and over, to the
ground, where I soon bored my way in, and
began to suck the juices of the roots about
me. I liked it then, but I couldn’t stand it
now. Of course the moles were trying.
They were always hungry and we were one
of the things they liked for dinner. One
day something seemed to call me to the world
<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>of light, and I came out a changed being—in
fact, the beautiful creature you see before
you now. Perhaps you do not know how
much attention we have attracted? In all
ages poets have sung of us, even from the
days of Homer. Maybe you will not believe
me, but the early Greeks thought us almost
divine, and when Homer wished to say the
nicest things about his orators he compared
them to cicadas. A while ago I told you
we were sometimes called harvest flies. We
have also been given the name Lyremen.
Shall I tell you why?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“A story!” cried Ruth, clapping her hands.
“Oh, yes, please tell it!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very well. Once upon a time, ages ago,
a young Grecian player was competing for
a prize, and so sweet was the music he drew
from his lyre that all who heard it felt he
must surely win. But alas! when he was
nearly finished one of his strings snapped,
and, with a sad heart, he thought that all his
hope was gone. Not so, however, for a cicada,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>drawn from the woods by the sweet sounds,
had perched upon the lyre and when the musician’s
trembling fingers touched the broken
string it gave forth a note that was clear and
true. Thus again and again the cicada
answered in tones that were sweet and full.
When the happy player realized that the
cicada had won the prize for him, he was so
filled with gratitude that he caused a full
figure of himself to be carved in marble, and
in his hand a lyre with a cicada perched
upon it. Now wouldn’t you be proud if
your family had such a nice story about
them?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’m sure it is very nice,” agreed Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yet I’m not one to brag,” added the
cicada, “and I am never ashamed to say I’m
a bug. Now if you will come with me to
the pond I will show you some of my cousins.
They are very interesting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>And with a whiz the gauzy-winged fellow
darted up into the sunshine, and Ruth,
following him across the meadow, could only
<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>hug Belinda in a rapture of expectation, and
whisper in a low voice:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Aren’t we in luck, Belinda—just the
best kind of luck?”</p>
<p class='c012'>They had gone only a little way, however,
when a mole pushed his strong little snout
above the ground.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious! what a noise,” he said. “If
I had had a chance when you were a baby
you wouldn’t be here now to disturb quiet-minded
people.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth jumped. She thought the mole
meant he would have eaten her. Then she
laughed. “Of course it was the cicada he
was talking to,” but the cicada didn’t mind.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I know that very well,” he answered,
cheerfully, “but you didn’t get me. That
makes all the difference, and now you can’t.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, nobody wants you now. You would
be mighty dry eating, but when you were
a grub, oh, my! so fat and juicy, like all
the other grubs and slugs and worms. I eat
you all. Yet what thanks do I get from man
<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>for doing away with so many of his enemies?
Complaints, nothing but complaints, and
just because I raise a few ridges in the
ground. I can’t help that. When I move
underground I push the earth before me, and,
as it has to go somewhere, it rises up.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“What do you push with?” asked Ruth,
sitting down in front of the mole.</p>
<p class='c012'>“With my snout and forepaws,” he answered,
“what else? The muscle which
moves my head is very powerful, and you
can see how broad my forepaws are, and,
also, that they turn outward. They help
to throw back the earth as I make my way
forward. I have ever so many sharp little
teeth, too, and my fur lies smooth in all
directions, so it never rumples and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do come on,” interrupted the cicada;
“that fellow isn’t interesting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That’s so,” said a thin little voice, as
an earthworm cautiously lifted his head
from the ground. “Has he gone?” he asked
anxiously. “He’d eat me sooner than wink
<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>if he saw me. It is warm and damp this
morning, that is why I am so near the surface.
I don’t like dry or cold weather. My
house——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Have you a house?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth had turned upon him in a second,
full of questions as usual.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Certainly I have a house. It is a row of
halls, lined with glue from my own body.
The walls are so firm they can’t fall in.
Underground is really a delightful place to
live, snug and soft, cool in Summer, warm in
Winter. Lots to see, too. All the creeping,
twining roots and stems reaching out for
food, storing it away, or sending it up as sap
to the leaves. The seeds waking up in the
Spring, and hosts of meadow and wood people
wrapped in egg and cocoon, who spend their
baby days there. Quite a little world, I
assure you. Of course I can’t see any of
these things. I have no eyes.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh!” said Ruth, “how dreadful!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, it is just as well. If I had eyes I
<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>might get earth in them. I go through
the ground so much.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But isn’t that awful hard work?” asked
Ruth, shutting her eyes to realize what having
no eyes might mean.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It isn’t hard when one has a nice set of
bristles, as I have to help me along.” The
earthworm was one who saw the best side of
everything. “I am made up of more than a
hundred rings,” he went on, “and on each are
small stiff hair-like bristles so, though I have
neither eyes, ears, hands, nor feet, I am quite
independent. I can move very fast, and the
slime that covers me keeps the earth from
sticking to me. Do you know I am the
only jointed animal that has red blood?
It is so. I do no harm, either, to growing
things, and I help to build the world. My
tunnels let air into the ground and help to
keep it loose. I also bring up rich soil from
below, and lay it on the surface. I also——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, that’s enough,” interrupted the
cicada, moving his wings impatiently. “I
<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>thought you wanted to see <i>my</i> relations?”
he added to Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“So I do,” answered Ruth. “Where are
they?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“There are a number of them right in this
meadow, though you would never think it,
to look at them. They are not at all like
me. See that white froth clinging to those
grass stems? A cousin made that. Of the
sap of the plant too. If you look, you will
find her in the midst of it. She is green and
speckled and very small. Then there are
the tree hoppers, as funny in shape as brownies,
and the leaf hoppers. They are all my
cousins. The aphides too. Of course you
know the aphides?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I believe they were the things Mrs.
Lacewing told me I should learn about later,”
said Ruth, with sudden remembrance.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very likely. Mrs. Lacewing’s children
should know about them. The aphides are
very bad, though they are so very tiny.
But what they lack in size they make up in
<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>numbers. Really there are millions of them.
They are not travellers, either, but stay
just where they are hatched, and suck,
suck, suck. In that way they kill many
plants, for it is the sap of the plant, its life
juice, which serves them for food. They
eat so much of this that their bodies can’t
hold it all, and what they don’t need is given
off as honey dew. The ants like this honey
so well that to get it they take good care of
the aphides. But there are some aphides
which do not give off honey dew. Do you see
this white stuff on the alder bushes?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes. I’ve often seen it before, too. It
looks like soft white fringe.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, it isn’t. It is a lot of aphides, each
with a tuft of wool on its body, and a beak
fast stuck in the alder stem.”</p>
<p class='c012'>They had now reached the pond, which
lay smiling in the sunshine.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It would be so pretty,” said Ruth, throwing
herself down on the grass, “if it wasn’t for
the horrid, green, oozy stuff all over it.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>“Horrid, green, oozy stuff?” repeated the
cicada. “Child, you don’t know what you
are talking about. That green stuff is made
up of tiny green plants more than you could
count. Each has a rootlet hanging down like
a silver thread and leaves almost too small to
be called so. They are green though and
they do the mighty work of all green leaves,
for, besides shading the pond world from the
hot rays of the sun, they make for the many
inhabitants the life-giving oxygen without
which they would die. And I want to tell
you something more: In that duckweed—for
what you call green, oozy stuff is duckweed—there
are millions of tiny living
things too small to be seen by the eye except
with the aid of a microscope.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth looked quite as astonished as the
cicada meant she should be.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You have a great deal to learn, I assure
you. Maybe you haven’t thought of the
pond as a world, but just see what a busy
place it is.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>Ruth looked and agreed with the cicada.
Dragon flies were darting here, there, and
everywhere; frogs, with their heads out of
the water, seemed to be admiring the scenery
when they were not swallowing air or whatever
else came in their way; glancing minnows
and bright-eyed tadpoles played amongst
the swaying water weeds; even the wrigglers
were there, standing on their heads in their
own funny way; and the water striders, skating
after their own queer fashion. Yes, it
was a busy place.</p>
<p class='c012'>A party of whirligig beetles came dashing
by, circling, curving, spinning, and making
such a disturbance that a backswimmer lost
his patience and told them to be quiet.</p>
<p class='c012'>They didn’t like that at all, so they threw
about him a very disagreeable milky fluid
which made the backswimmer dive for the
bottom in a hurry.</p>
<p class='c012'>“That settled him,” said one of the whirligigs.
“Hello! friend Skipper Jack,” he called
to a water strider, “what are you doing?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>“Skating, of course,” answered the water
strider. “There, they are gone,” he added,
to the cicada, “and I am glad of it. They
are nuisances.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You are right,” agreed the cicada.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am glad they don’t belong to our order.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Don’t they?” asked Ruth. “I think they
are awfully funny.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Funny or not, they are beetles,” answered
the water strider. “You had better use
your eyes. Do you know why I can skate
and not get my feet wet? No, of course you
don’t, and yet it is as plain as the nose on
your face. I have a coat of hairs on the
under side of my body. That’s why. I
spend my time on the surface of the water,
for my dinner is right here. Plenty of gnats,
insect eggs, and other eatables. Then if
I wish I can spring up in the air for the
things that fly. My Winters I spend under
water, but for other seasons give me the surface.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“And I like the bottom best,” said a water
<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>boatman, showing himself quite suddenly,
his air-covered body glittering like silver
armour.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Another cousin,” whispered the cicada
in Ruth’s ear. “He is called the water
cicada, as well as water boatman.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“He looks more like a boat than he does
like you,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“My body is boat-shaped,” spoke up the
boatman; “and see my hind legs; they really
are like oars, aren’t they?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am wondering what brought you to
the surface,” said the cicada.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, I let go my hold on that old water
weed, and you know the air that covers my
body makes it lighter than the water and
unless I cling to something I naturally rise.
It is inconvenient, for I do not need to come
to the surface for air. I can breathe the
same air over and over, because I know how
to purify it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“How do you do it?” asked Ruth. Surely
these insects were wonderfully clever.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>“Oh, I simply hang to something with my
front legs, while I move my back ones just
as I do in swimming, and that makes a current
of water pass over my coat of air and
purify it. That fellow swimming on his
back over there is obliged to come to the
surface every little while. He carries air
down in a bubble under his wings.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do you mean me?” asked the backswimmer,
making a sudden leap in the air,
and flying away.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious!” cried Ruth in surprise. “I
didn’t know he could fly.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“There’s a good deal you don’t know,”
replied the water boatman, a remark Ruth
had heard before. “I can fly too,” and he
also spread his wings and was off.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well,” said the cicada, “I guess we might
as well be off too. There seems to be no
one in sight to interest us.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“What about cousin Belostoma?” asked
a sort of muffled voice, as a great pair of bulging
eyes showed themselves above the water,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>and out came the giant water bug as big as
life.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’ve just had my dinner,” he said. “It
really is funny to see how everything hides
when Belostoma shows his face. My wife
is the only one who doesn’t seem to be afraid
of me and she—well, she’s a terror and no
mistake.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, what’s the matter now?” asked the
cicada.</p>
<p class='c012'>“And what has happened to your back?”
added Ruth, with eager curiosity.</p>
<p class='c012'>“My wife’s happened, that’s what,” answered
Belostoma in a doleful tone. “She
laid her eggs a while ago and glued every
blessed one to my back. It is nothing to
laugh at either. There’s no joke in being a
walking incubator. Well, I must be going
now. It is dinner time.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I thought you just had your dinner,”
said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, but it’s time again. It is always
time. How silly you are.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>“I must go too,” said the cicada, “but it
isn’t dinner that calls me. I feel sure my
mate is longing for some music and I’m
off to give her a bit. See you later.”</p>
<p class='c012'>And, spreading his wings, the cicada flew
away, beating his drums as he went.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_129.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_130.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> <span class='large'>MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>Their wings with azure green</div>
<div class='line in2'>And purple glossed.</div>
<div class='line in18'>—<i>Anna L. Barbauld.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Something exciting was going on.
Ruth could not tell just what it was
at first. She could only watch and
wonder. Then her eyes grew large and bright.
Surely some fairy’s wand had touched the
old orchard, for suddenly it seemed alive
with beetles—big beetles and little beetles;
beetles in sober colourings, and beetles gleaming
with all the tints of the rainbow. Ruth
had never dreamed that there could be so
many of them or that they were so beautiful.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>The gorgeously coloured, graceful tigers
attracted her first, though she didn’t know
their name.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh,” she cried, “how lovely!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“And how strange,” added a voice just
above her head, “how very strange, their
children should be so homely.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“What’s that?” asked one of the tigers,
a metallic green fellow, with purple lights,
and two pale yellow dots on the edge of each
wing cover. “Our children not so beautiful
as we are, did you say? Of course, they are
not; a fat grub couldn’t be, you know. But
let me tell you, there are few things as smart
as a tiger beetle baby. I say,” he added,
looking full at Ruth, “have you ever seen
the hole he digs? It is often a foot deep,
while he is less than an inch long. He has
only his jaws and fore legs to work with
too. Yet he piles the earth on his flat head
as if it were the easiest thing in the world,
and then, climbing to the top, he throws it
off, and is ready for another load.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>“I suppose he digs a hole to catch things,”
said Ruth, “like the ant lion, and does he
stay at the bottom and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, he doesn’t stay at the bottom. He
watches near the top of his hole for his dinner,
hanging on by a pair of hooks which grow
out of a hump on his back. He always goes
to the bottom to eat his dinner, though;
he seems to like privacy. Yes, we are a
fierce family from the beginning, for we
grown tigers can catch our prey either running
or flying, and we usually manage to get
it, too. But, then, farmers need not complain
of us, for we never eat plants, and that is
more than can be said of many here.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Such taste,” said a cloaked, knotty horn,
holding herself in a position that showed
off her changeable blue and green dress, and
her short yellow cape.</p>
<p class='c012'>But the tiger did not answer. He was off
after his dinner. Several tree borers, however,
nodded their heads in agreement.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I believe in a vegetable diet myself,”
<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>said Mrs. Sawyer, who wore as usual her
dress of brown and gray. “It is just such
people as the tigers who make things like
that necessary in a respectable meeting,”
and as she spoke she waved her very long
antennæ toward a big sign which read:</p>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center'>
<div><span class='small'>“THE AUDIENCE ARE REQUESTED NOT TO EAT EACH OTHER DURING THE MEETING”</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“I am glad to say I am not one of that
kind. I wonder if any one of you know why
the members of our family are called sawyers.
Perhaps I had better tell you: It is because
our children saw into the trunks of evergreen
trees, and sometimes they make holes
large enough to kill the trees. Smart, isn’t
it, for a baby?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But it doesn’t seem to be very nice,”
began Ruth. Then she stopped, for Mrs.
Sawyer was looking at her and the borers
were nodding their heads again.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Our children do not saw,” said the borers,
“but they do bore, and it is pretty much the
same thing for the tree.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>“My friends,” broke in a very solemn voice.</p>
<p class='c012'>Every beetle stopped talking, and Ruth
jumped to her feet, then flopped down on
the grass again, waiting for what was coming.</p>
<p class='c012'>The speaker, a large, clean-looking beetle,
had just flown to a twig in the very middle
of the meeting. He was black in colour, well
sprinkled above and below with pale straw
yellow in dots and points, but the queer
thing about him was the two oval velvety
black spots, each with a narrow line of straw
colour around it, on his thorax. They were
like great eyes, and made him look very wise.</p>
<p class='c012'>“He is the eyed-elater,” whispered Mrs.
Sawyer to Ruth. “There he is speaking
again.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“My friends,” the big beetle was saying
in tones as solemn, as before, “the important
thing in any meeting is to keep to the
main issue.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The main issue?” said the goldsmith
beetle, a beautiful little creature with wing
covers of golden yellow, and a body of metallic
<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>green covered with white, woolly fuzz.
“What is the main issue?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dinner,” replied the tiger beetle, returning
to his old place. “If it isn’t breakfast
or supper.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, my friend,” said the eyed-elater,
with a grave glance, “the main issue is——”</p>
<p class='c012'>Then he stopped and fixed his two real
eyes and the two spots which looked like
eyes on some small beetles which were leaping
in the air, turning somersaults, and making
quite a noise.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Will you be still?” he said in his sternest
voice.</p>
<p class='c012'>“How foolish,” said Mrs. Sawyer, “to
expect click beetles to be still!”</p>
<p class='c012'>But Ruth was all curiosity.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’ve seen you before,” she said, going
closer and touching one of the funny little
fellows.</p>
<p class='c012'>Suddenly it curled up its legs, dropped
as if shot, then lay like one dead.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Here, here!” called the elater. “No
<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>more of that! We know all about your
tricks!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“All right,” said the would-be dead one,
and he gave a click, popped into the air
several inches, and came down on his back.</p>
<p class='c012'>“That won’t do at all,” he said, and, clicking
and popping once more, he came down
on his feet.</p>
<p class='c012'>“There,” he added, “you need to have
patience with click beetles. You ought to
know that, friend elater, for you are one of
us.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I’m bigger, and not so foolish, and
my children are not so harmful as yours.
Think of being a parent of those dreadful
wire worms! That is what you click beetles
are, and you know the farmer hasn’t a
worse enemy. Now we must get back to
the main issue.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“<i>Back?</i>” said Mrs. Sawyer. “Were we
ever there to begin with? You can’t scare
me,” she added, “no matter how hard you
stare. You haven’t any more eyes than the
<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>rest of us. Those two spots are not real
eyes, and you know it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The main issue,” repeated the elater in
a very loud voice, “is, What makes us beetles?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That’s something I’d like to know,”
said a handsome little beetle in a striped coat.
“I’m a beetle, if there ever was one, yet I
have a world-wide reputation as a bug.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Pray don’t get excited, Mrs. Potato Bug.
It isn’t your time to talk yet. We are on the
main issue, and I will answer my own question.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was glad some one would answer it,
for at this rate it seemed they would never
get anywhere.</p>
<p class='c012'>“We are beetles for several reasons,” went
on the elater. “In the first place, we belong
to the order Coleoptera.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Another tera, thought Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“That name is taken from a language called
Greek, and means sheath wing. It is given to
us because we have handsome outside wings
which we use to cover our real flying wings.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>All beetles have them, though those of our
cousin, Mr. Rove Beetle, are quite short.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That’s a fact,” said a rove beetle, “and
no one need think we have outgrown our
coats. It is simply a fashion in our family
to wear our sheath wings short. We can always
fold our true wings under them, and
I’d like to see the fellow who says we can’t.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, you needn’t get so mad about it,”
answered the elater in mild tones.</p>
<p class='c012'>“And don’t curl your body up as if you
were a wasp,” added Mrs. Sawyer. “Everybody
knows you can’t sting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t care,” said the rove beetle. “I
hate to be misunderstood. We are useful
too. I heard a man call us scavengers.
I don’t know what it means, but something
good, I am sure, from the way he said it.
I must be going soon. It is so dry here.
You know my home is in damp places under
stones or leaves.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You may go when you wish,” answered
the elater. “We are still on the main issue.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>As I said before, we are beetles, and there
is no reason to take us for bugs. Calm
yourself, Mrs. Potato Bug. We have no
sucking beak as the bugs have, but we have
two sets of horny jaws, which move sideways,
and <i>not</i> up and down. These are to bite
roots, stems, and leaves of plants, so most
of our order live on vegetable food and are
enemies to the farmer, but some of us are his
friends, for we eat the insects that injure
his crops. Our children are called grubs.
Some of them make a sort of glue, with which
they stick together earth or bits of wood for
a cocoon; others make tunnels in tree trunks
or wood and transform in them. We may
well be proud, for we belong to a large and
beautiful order, and we are found in all
parts of the world. We are divided into two
sub-orders—true beetles and snout beetles.
I hope our cousins, the snout beetles, will
not be offended. They are real in a way.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The farmer and fruit grower think so
anyway,” said a little weevil. “We have been
<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>called bugs just because we have a snout,
but any one can see at a glance that it isn’t
a bug’s snout. It is not a tube at all, but
has tiny jaws at the tip.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t believe I could see all that,” said
Ruth rather timidly, for these clever little
people had a way of making her feel she knew
very little.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Maybe you can’t,” was the short answer,
“and I dare say you can’t tell how we use
our snouts either. We punch holes with
them in plums, peaches, cherries, and other
fruits, not to mention nuts and the bark of
trees. I am a peach curculio, but that is not
important. We all work in the same way—that
is, drop an egg in the hole made by
our snout, then use the snout again to push
the egg down. Mrs. Plum Weevil is busy
now in the plum orchard back of us; so of
course she couldn’t come to this meeting.
‘Duty before pleasure,’ she said. She will lay
eggs in quite a number of plums, and the plums
will drop from the trees before they are ripe.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>“And there’ll be a lump of gum on them!”
cried Ruth, clapping her hands.</p>
<p class='c012'>The weevil looked at her with approval.
“You do notice some things,” she said.</p>
<p class='c012'>“The gum oozes out of the hole made by
our snouts. Of course our egg hatches inside
the fruit, and the baby has its dinner all
around it. As it hasn’t a leg to walk on——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dear! dear!” sighed the elater. “You
seem to forget that we are trying to keep
to the main issue. As I said before——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You are always saying what you said
before,” snapped Mrs. Sawyer.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now, they are beginning again,” thought
Ruth, but the elater paid no attention to Mrs.
Sawyer.</p>
<p class='c012'>“As I said before,” he repeated, “we have
reason to be proud, for though we build no
cities, like ants, wasps, and bees, and make
no honey or wax, or have, in fact, any special
trades, yet we are interesting and beautiful.
The ancient Egyptians thought some of us
sacred and worshipped us.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>“There!” cried Mrs. Tumble Bug, literally
tumbling into their midst. “I couldn’t
come at a better time.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth gave a little scream of delight when
she saw her, and Mrs. Tumble Bug nodded
with the air of an old friend.</p>
<p class='c012'>As usual, her black dress looked neat and
clean, though she and her husband had rolled
and tumbled all over the road in their effort
to get their ball to what they considered the
best place for it. They had succeeded, and
Mrs. Tumble Bug’s shovel-shaped face wore
a broad smile in consequence.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I knew about this meeting,” she said,
“but my husband and I agreed that duty
should come before pleasure.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“She heard me say that,” whispered
the little peach weevil to her nearest neighbour.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I didn’t,” answered Mrs. Tumble Bug.
“I have just come. We only found a safe
place for our ball a little while ago.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That ball!” said Mrs. Sawyer in disgusted
<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>tones. “I should think you would
be tired of it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Tired of our ball?” repeated Mrs. Tumble
Bug. “Why, our ball is the most important
thing in the world. This was a big one, too.
We made it in Farmer Brown’s barnyard,
and then I laid my eggs in it, and we rolled
it all the way here. Of course it grew on the
road, and I couldn’t have moved it alone,
but my mate helped me. He always helps.
Indeed it seems to me tumble bugs are the
only husbands in the insect world who care
about their children’s future.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now I know,” said Ruth, who had been
thinking very hard. “You think so much
of your balls because they hold your eggs.
I’ve often wondered about them.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course that is the reason,” answered
Mrs. Tumble Bug; “and when our eggs
hatch the babies will have a feast all around
them.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Ugh!” said Ruth, and some flower beetles
shook their little heads, and added:</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>“It would be better to starve than eat the
stuff in that ball.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Tastes differ,” said Mrs. Tumble Bug,
amiably; “but, speaking of sacred beetles,
it was our family the Egyptians worshipped.
They could not understand why we were
always rolling our ball, so they looked upon
us as divine in some way, and made pictures
of us in stone and precious gems. They
can be seen to-day, I am told, but I do not
care about that. I must make another
ball,” and, nodding to her mate, they left
the meeting together.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now we’ll adjourn for dinner,” announced
the elater, much to the disgust of Mrs. Potato
Bug, who was just getting ready to speak.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dinner is well enough,” she said, “but
how is one to enjoy it when one must stop
in a little while?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You needn’t stop,” answered the elater.
“Stay with your dinner. We are not so
anxious to hear you talk.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But I mean to talk, and I <i>will</i>,” and Mrs.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>Potato Bug was off to the potato field, intending,
as she said, to take a light lunch,
and be back when the meeting opened.</p>
<p class='c012'>But potato bugs propose, and farmers dispose,
and——</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_145.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_146.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX<br /> <span class='large'>LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>It’s a wonder, it’s a wonder</div>
<div class='line'>That they live to tell the tale.</div>
<div class='line in38'>—<i>Anon.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Mrs. Potato Bug did not return.
A sister bug rose to speak when the
meeting opened after dinner. There
had been a sad tragedy in the potato field,
she told them, and even at that very minute
the farmer and the farmer’s men, armed with
barrels of “pizens,” were waging a warfare
in which millions of potato bugs were going
down to their death. “Alas! my friends,”
she finished with a sigh that seemed to come
<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>from the very tips of her six feet, “no words
can paint the dreadful scene. She who was
here but a short while ago, so chipper and so
gay, even she was giving her last gasp as I
fled from the field of carnage.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The story moved the audience deeply,
and all agreed that something should be done
to suppress the farmers. It was even suggested
to appoint a committee to consider
ways and means, but at this point a very
young potato bug asked the question:</p>
<p class='c012'>“If there were no farmers, who would
plant potatoes for us?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No one,” answered Mrs. Sawyer, who was
there just as self-important as ever. “Then
maybe there would be no potato bugs, and
I for one wouldn’t be sorry.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Indeed,” said the potato bug who had
told the tale of battle, “I’d have you know
we are Colorado beetles, if you please, and
our family has a world-wide fame. We are
true Americans, too, and not emigrants from
Europe, like many other insects, and that
<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>reminds me: The other day when I was having
a nice chew on some very juicy potato
leaves, I heard somebody say to somebody
else: ‘Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of
the West.’ He said a lot more, but I heard
that plainly, and I wondered if he meant our
family, and didn’t know our name, because,
you know, we came out of the West.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am sure he didn’t mean you,” said Ruth,
who was in her old place right in the middle
of the meeting. “That line is from a lovely
piece of poetry about——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No one asked your opinion,” answered
the potato bug angrily. “It is bad enough
to have outsiders force themselves in, without
being obliged to hear their silly remarks.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth’s face grew red, and she was about to
reply, when Mrs. Sawyer whispered in her ear.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Don’t mind her, she is only a potato bug.”</p>
<p class='c012'>It was well that Mrs. Potato Bug did not
hear this. “Before 1859,” she was saying,
“our home was in the shade of the Rocky
Mountains. There we fed on sandspur, a
<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>plant belonging to the potato family, and the
East knew us not. It was only after the
white settlers came West and planted potatoes
that we found out how much nicer a potato
leaf is than a sandspur leaf, so of course we
ate potato leaves. We came East, travelling
from patch to patch, and by 1874 we had
conquered the country to the Atlantic Ocean.
That shows what a smart family we must
be, and I will tell you how we do. We lay
our eggs on the potato leaves, and our children
find their dinner all ready, and, as they hatch
with splendid appetites, they get right to
work. Those that hatch in the Fall sleep
all Winter in the ground and come out as
beetles in the Spring, just in time to lay more
eggs. So we keep things going, especially
the potatoes.” And Mrs. Potato Bug retired
with the air of one quite proud of herself.</p>
<p class='c012'>Her place was taken by a little ladybug,
looking quite pretty in her reddish-brown
dress, daintily spotted with black.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I have several cousins,” she said, “of
<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>different colours, but all spotted and all friends
to farmers and fruit growers, for we eat the
aphides and scale bugs which do so much
harm to plants. We are called bugs, but of
course we are beetles. I could tell you a
story——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Never mind the story,” said a great brown
blundering fellow, much to Ruth’s regret,
for she wanted to hear the story.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Excuse my awkwardness,” said the newcomer.
“It bothers me to fly by day. I
like to go around the evening lamps. I can
buzz loud enough for a fellow three inches
long, though I am really not one. I am
called a June bug, and I’m really a May
beetle. What do you think of that? I have
been told that the farmers do not like us,
nor our children either. They are such
nice, fat, white grubs too. They do love
to suck the roots of plants though, and,
as we grown fellows are just as fond of the
leaves, between us we make the poor old
plants pretty sick.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>“I wish something had made you sick
before you came here to disturb quiet folks
with your buzzing,” said a large blue beetle,
dropping some oil from her joints in her
excitement.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she added when
Ruth spoke to her about it. “It only proves
that I have a right to be called an oil beetle.
In these days it is so important to know who
is who.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was watching the oozing oil curiously.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Does it hurt?” she asked.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, no,” was the answer. “It is perfectly
natural. I can’t move about fast, I
am too fat, and I haven’t any wings to speak
of. So when anything disturbs me I can
only play ’possum and drop oil. I wasn’t
always like this, though,” she went on,
with a heavy sigh. “Would you believe it?
I was born under a stone in a field of buttercups.
I was tiny, but my body had thirteen
joints and three pairs of as active little legs
as you ever saw. Each had a claw on it too.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>What do you think of that? I used my legs
right away to climb a nearby flower stalk.
Something inside of me seemed to tell me
just what to do, and when a bee came flying
by, though she looked like a giant, I wasn’t
a bit afraid, but I popped on her back, and
clutched so tight with my six little claw-like
legs she couldn’t have gotten me off if she
had tried. But maybe she didn’t know I
was there. Anyway, I had some lovely
free rides, for she flew from flower to flower,
and then she went home.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh,” interrupted Ruth, “did you go right
into the hive?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, but I didn’t notice much about it
at first. I felt very tired, and I can only
remember dropping from her back and going
to sleep. When I awoke a funny thing had
happened.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“What?” asked Ruth, full of curiosity.</p>
<p class='c012'>“My legs were gone, and only a half dozen
short feelers were left me instead. But I
didn’t mind. I was in one of the tiny rooms
<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>of the hive, and there was a nice fat bee
baby for me to eat. I didn’t lose any time
either; I was hungry. Besides the baby
there were bee bread and honey. Who could
ask for more? Indeed, I ate so much I went
to sleep again, and, would you believe me?
in that sleep I lost even my short feelers,
and, worst of all, my mouth.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious!” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I suppose after that I slept again, for
what’s the use of staying awake if you can’t
eat? But that nap finished me. I waked
up looking as I do now. It was a sad change.
Maybe that is why I feel so blue and am
called the indigo beetle.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t see why you changed so many
times,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Neither do I. No other insect does, but
I suppose it has to be. I shall soon lay my
eggs, and that no doubt will be the end of me.
We seem to begin and end with eggs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>She sighed heavily, and went on: “I
have a cousin who is used to make blisters
<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>on people. Think of it! She is called Spanish
fly, and she is no more a fly than you are.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Does she bite them to make the blister?”
asked Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dear me, no! The poor thing is dried
and made into powder and then spread with
ointment on a cloth. That makes the blister.
I suppose it takes ever so many of my poor
cousins for just one blister. I tell you, life
is sad.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do stop that sort of thing, I can’t stand
it!” said a plain, slender little beetle, with
no pretensions to beauty of any sort. “I
came here as a special favour, and then I am
forced to hear such talk as that. I am never
at my best in the day, and you should know
it. Some of you complain of being called
bug, and others object to the name fly.
Now I am as much a beetle as any of you, and
I’ve been called both bug and fly.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“A lightning bug?” cried Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, and also firefly, and if it was dark
I’d prove it. Of course my light can’t be
<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>seen in the day, and generally I’m not to be
seen either, for we fireflies hide away on the
leaves of plants until it begins to grow dark.
Then we come out, and have gay times flying
over the meadows. Some of our family
who live in warm climates are so large and
bright they are used to read by. Not only
that, ladies wear them as they would jewels,
and in Japan——”</p>
<p class='c012'>But the firefly could say no more, for just
at this moment some whirligig beetles came
flying in and every one turned to look at
them.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I should like to know what those fellows
are doing here,” said a bumble-bee beetle,
making such a loud humming that Mrs.
Sawyer declared she thought a real bumble bee
was in their midst. “People who live
in the water shouldn’t belong to our family,
anyhow. I can’t imagine any one liking the
water.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That’s because you are not a water
beetle,” answered one of the whirligigs.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>“Why, the water is the most sociable place
in the world. Something lively happening
all the time. Constant changes too. Those
who are with us one moment are gone the
next, but that is life on land as well as in
the water for us insects. Dinner is always
our first thought. Of course we water fellows
are fitted for our life. We are put together
more tightly than you land beetles, and we
are boat-shaped besides. We use our hind
legs for paddles, and we have wings with
which we can leave the water if we wish.
We whirligigs are sociable fellows, always
a lot of us together, and such fun as we
have dancing and whirling about in the water!
We don’t often dive unless something is
after us.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“You must have very good times,” said
Ruth, watching the shiny, bluish black little
beetles with eager attention. Then she asked
quite suddenly:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Have you four eyes?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, my dear,” answered the first speaker,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>“we have only two. They look like four,
because they are divided into upper and
lower halves. So you see we can look up
and down at the same time, and, I tell you,
insects need to step lively to keep out of our
way. Good times? I should say we did
have good times. Now to the surface to
snatch bubbles of air with the tiny hairs on
the tip of our tails, and then down again for
a race or a game of tag with our friends.
No, not all the water beetles are as frisky
as we are. Some are—now what <i>is</i> that?”</p>
<p class='c012'>The whirligig might well ask the question,
for a sound like a tiny popgun had broken
in upon his remarks, and the whole audience,
including Ruth of course, was looking at a
greenish blue beetle who had just come in,
leaving a fine trail of smoke behind him.
It was he who had made the queer noise,
and he seemed quite disturbed by the sensation
he was creating.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Do excuse me,” he begged. “I really
forgot I was among friends.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>“I should think so,” answered the elater,
looking at him sternly. “A beetle who carries
a gun should be careful about using it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I try to be careful, but accidents
will happen.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, you might really call it a gun,” he
said, in answer to Ruth’s question, “and I
have been named the Bombardier beetle
because I carry it. When men try to catch
me, I shoot it off, though I suppose it really
doesn’t hurt them, but it quite blinds my
insect enemies until I can get away, anyhow.
Oh, no, I do not use balls or shot. It is a
fluid, in a sac at the end of my body, and when
I spurt it out it turns to gas, and looks like
smoke.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, we have had talk enough for to-day,”
interrupted the elater, and the Bombardier
beetle said no more.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Talk?” repeated Mrs. Sawyer, “I should
say so. Very tiresome talk too. Now I’m
going out to lay some eggs. I know a lovely
tree.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>“That’s all she thinks about,” said the
elater. “I’m sure we have had a very interesting
meeting, and I made the main issue
very plain.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_159.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_160.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X<br /> <span class='large'>SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>That nothing walks with aimless feet.</div>
<div class='line in40'>—<i>Tennyson.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>In a corner of the garden, where the lilacs
grew tall and broad, Ruth was waiting
for something to happen. She had a
feeling, as she told Belinda, that the most
interesting things were coming, for the wind
had been kissing her cheeks and ruffling
her hair, just as though it was saying to her,
“Watch now. Watch closely and listen.”
Then, too, the garden seemed to be alive.
Bees droning over the flowers; wasps collecting
their tiny balls of wood pulp or marketing
<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>for their families; ants running here, there,
and everywhere; not to mention many other
winged creatures, some of whom were made
after a fashion so queer that Ruth, forgetting
how rude it is to make personal remarks,
deliberately asked of one:</p>
<p class='c012'>“If you please, what is that long piece
which seems to be growing from the tip of
your body? It looks like Mary’s stove hook
when she sticks it in the lid.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That,” was the rather short answer, “is
my abdomen, and it isn’t growing from the
tip of my body, but from the <i>top</i> of my thorax.
It seems to me you have never seen an
ensign fly before.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, I never did. Please, what does
ensign mean?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The dictionary will tell you that. All
I know is some man got an idea that we
carried our abdomens aloft like a flag or
ensign, and so named us ensign fly. We are
not flies, to begin with, but we have to keep
any idiotic name they choose to tack on us.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>Now take Mrs. Horntail, who wants——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Thank you, I can speak for myself,”
interrupted the horntail, sharply. She was
quite handsome, with her black abdomen
banded with yellow, her red and black head,
yellow legs and horn, and dusky wings.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I like my name. It means something,
for I have a horn on my tail, and, what’s
more, I use it. You should see me bore into
solid green wood. None of your dead wood
for me. I am not content with one hole
either. I bore a great many, and in each
I drop an egg, and when my babies hatch
they get fat on the sap wood of the tree.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“There seem to be such a lot of things to
eat trees,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Perhaps there are, but I am interested
in horntail babies only. They do their share
of eating too, and when they grow sleepy
they make cocoons of chips and silk from
their own bodies, and go to sleep. After
they wake they are changed into winged
creatures, who naturally do not care to live
<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>in the tree any more. So they gnaw their
way through the bark to the outside world
and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Not if the woodpeckers and I can help
it,” interrupted an ichneumon fly, keeping
her antennæ in constant motion. She seemed
to have long streamers floating from the back
of her, and, altogether, Ruth thought her
even queerer looking than the ensign fly.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Those streamers are my ovipositor,” she
explained to Ruth. “The thing I lay eggs
with, you understand. When I shut them
together they form a sort of auger, with
which I bore into a tree, way, way in, where
the fat horntail babies are chewing the sap
wood, and so ruining the tree. Into their
soft bodies I lay my eggs and when my
children hatch they eat, not the tree, but the
horntail baby. It is a wonderfully good
riddance, and so the farmer and fruit grower
consider us their friends and call us ‘trackers,’
because we find the hiding places of so many
pests that harm the plants.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>“You can’t get my babies,” said Mrs.
Saw Fly. “I haven’t a horn, but I have a
saw, and, though it will not bore into wood,
it saws fine gashes in green leaves. Of
course I drop an egg in each gash, and soon
there’s a swelling all around it, and when
my children hatch they rock in gall nut
cradles, and the sap which gathers there is
their food.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Talk about gall cradles,” said a gall
fly, “my sisters and I are the fairies who
make them to perfection. Each of us has
a different plant or tree which she prefers,
and each follows her own fashion in making
galls, and we puzzle even the wise men.
Have you ever seen the brown galls that grow
on oaks?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, of course,” answered Ruth, glad
the question was such an easy one.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well that’s something, but I doubt if
you have noticed the rosy coloured sponge
that sometimes grows around the stem, or
the mimic branch of currants drooping from
<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>the spot where the tree intended an acorn
to be, or the tiny red apple-like ball on the
leaf.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth shook her head. “They must be
very pretty,” she said.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Pretty? I should say so. They are all
different kinds of galls too, and we gall flies
make them. Sometimes we sting the leaf,
sometimes the twig, and sometimes the stem,
and always just the kind of cradle we intended
grows from it, and the egg we laid there
hatched into a baby grub, ready to eat the
sap.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Then you know about the one on the
willow tree,” put in Ruth. “The one the
housefly told about. It grows like a pine
cone, and is made by some one with a dreadfully
long name.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That is something entirely different,”
answered the gall fly. “We do not pretend
to make all the galls, you understand. Some
are made by insects belonging to quite another
order. The willow tree cone is one. You
<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>may always know ours from the fact that we
make no door for the babies to come out, as
other insects do. Our babies make their
own door when they are ready to leave their
cradle. And now to show how much is in
some names, I will tell you that those other
gall insects are called gall gnats and belong
to the order of flies, while we are called gall
<i>flies</i>, and belong to the order Hymenoptera.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh!” cried Ruth, clapping her hands.
“Now I know the kind of tera you belong
to, Hy-men-op-tera,” she repeated slowly.
“Please tell me just what it means.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, I won’t,” was the ungracious answer.
“I hate explanations.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’ll tell you,” said Mrs. Horntail. “I
know all about it.” And as Ruth turned to
her with grateful eyes she began:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Hymenoptera means membrane wing, and
that’s the kind we have, though some of
our order have no wings at all. The others
have four wings, the front pair being larger,
with a fold along the hind edge, that catches
<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>on hooks on the front edge of the hind wings;
so we really seem to have but one pair. Do
you understand that?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes,” nodded Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very well. We are divided into two sub-orders:
stingers and borers. Our larvæ are
called maggots. They are not like us, being
white grubs, with round horny heads, pointed
tails, six legs——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Here, here!” said the ichneumon fly,
“that does well enough for your children,
but you know perfectly well that the babies
of the rest of us have no legs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, I know. Poor things! Legless children!
How sad! Mrs. Saw Fly and I are
the only exceptions.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“And your children use their legs to no
good purpose either,” said the ichneumon fly.</p>
<p class='c012'>“My children need no legs. They never
move from the spot where they are hatched
until after they transform. Why should
they? Their dinner is right there.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The same with mine,” added a little
<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>bright-coloured brachnoid. “I choose a nice
fat caterpillar, or something like that, to
lay my eggs in, and he always lasts until
my babies are ready to spin their cocoons,
which they do on his shell, or dried skin,
or whatever you choose to call it. I know
he himself is quite gone. It is a pretty sight
to see them.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The brachnoid herself was a pretty little
thing and as she looked not unlike the ichneumon
fly, only smaller, Ruth asked Mrs.
Horntail if she were not a young ichneumon
fly.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Young ichneumon?” repeated Mrs. Horntail.
“Whoever heard of such a thing?
A young ichneumon is as large as an old one.
None of us insects grow after we leave our
cocoons. When we are what you mean by
young—babies, in other words—we are
different. I thought you had learned that
before now. Haven’t you had larvæ and
pupæ explained to you?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, yes,” said Ruth, “but I had forgotten.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Of course you are different when
you are first hatched, and then you get wings,
while you sleep, but I thought maybe you
grew even after you had wings.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Some of the grasshopper tribe do that,
and spiders are hatched little spiders and
grow bigger as they grow older, but we do
no such thing. Besides, as you heard a
while ago, an ichneumon baby is legless,
absolutely legless, and homely. Well, I think
the homeliest thing that lives, but then what
can you expect with such a mother?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I don’t think she is so awfully homely,”
said Ruth. “She is odd-looking, and—and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Odd-looking?” repeated Mrs. Horntail.
“You should see her drilling a hole and laying
her eggs. If she doesn’t cut a figure, I don’t
know one. With her abdomen all in a hump,
her wings sticking straight up, and her antennæ
standing out in front, not to mention
the ridiculous loop she makes with the ovipositor,
she certainly is a sight.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>“But I find the horntail babies,” said the
ichneumon fly, quite undisturbed, “and that
is the important thing. I wonder if this
meeting is over?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I hope so,” answered Mrs. Horntail.
“It is not a proper meeting at all. If I
had the regulating of it, I would make some
of these creatures behave. See that ant on
the pebble over there. She is making faces,
actually making faces.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am not making faces,” answered the
ant. “I am getting ready to talk, and I
haven’t had a chance.”</p>
<p class='c012'>She was little and brown, and scarcely an
eighth of an inch long, but she looked quite
important as she prepared to address the
audience.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_170.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_171.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI<br /> <span class='large'>WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>A was an ant, who seldom stood still,</div>
<div class='line'>And who made a nice nest in the side of a hill.</div>
<div class='line in34'>—<i>Edward Lear.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>“Sh!” said Ruth to the audience in
general, for she wanted very much
to hear what the ant had to say.
The ant looked at her approvingly, and then
said in a very solemn tone:</p>
<p class='c012'>“My friends, there are ants and ants.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Who doesn’t know that?” snapped Mrs.
Horntail.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>
<img src='images/i_172.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘MY FRIENDS, THERE ARE ANTS AND ANTS’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“Yes, there are ants and ants,” repeated
the speaker, not noticing the interruption.
“There is the carpenter ant, for one. In
the books she is called Componotis Pennsylvanicus,
but never mind the name. It
doesn’t seem to hurt her. She makes her
nest in the trunks of trees, old buildings,
logs, and places of that kind. You can see
her on the leaf by Mrs. Saw Fly. She is
large and black and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Clean,” finished the carpenter ant, speaking
for herself, and, without asking further
permission, she poised on her hind legs and
began to ply her tongue, and the fine and
coarse combs on her fore legs, until she had
gone over her whole body, smoothing out
ruffled hairs, and getting rid of every atom
of soil. Her toilet done, she gave a few leisurely
strokes, then drew her fore legs through
her mouth to clean the combs, and stretched
herself with an air of satisfaction.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I hope I haven’t interrupted the proceedings,”
she said, “but if I am not clean I
am miserable. Now, Miss Lassius Brunens,
please go on.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>
<img src='images/i_174.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘THEN THERE ARE ANTS WHO KEEP SLAVES’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Miss who?” asked the little brown ant.
“Oh, I see. You are calling me by the
name the wise men give me. Well, I can
stand it. To continue: I have mentioned
the carpenter ant, and there are also the
mound builders. Everybody knows their
<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>big hills. Then there are ants who keep
slaves, and live under stones, and there are
honey ants, who live in the South and use
the abdomens of their own sisters to store
honey in, and there are ants who sow seed
and harvest it, and
ants who cut pieces
from green leaves
and carry them as
parasols, and soldier
ants and——”</p>
<div class='figright id005'>
<img src='images/i_175.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘THEN THERE ARE ANTS WHO CUT PIECES FROM GREEN LEAVES AND CARRY THEM AS PARASOLS’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, give us a
rest!” broke in Mrs.
Horntail. “I am
tired of ants.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Jealous, you
mean,” said the little
brown ant, “because
you are not as wise as we are. Maybe you
don’t know that whole books have been
written about us and our clever doings.
And men have spent years and years trying
to study our ways. Now my family may
<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>not be the most wonderful, but I think
it is the best known. We are the little
ants who make the hill with a hole in the
middle, which you so often see on sandy
paths, or roadsides, or in dry fields.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth had edged closer, and was listening
eagerly. Once more the little ant looked at
her approvingly, then went on:</p>
<p class='c012'>“Some people think our houses are queer,
because they are dark. Of course we have
no windows, only a door, and that is a hole
in the roof. We like it so though, and you
might be surprised if you could see our many
wonderful galleries and chambers. We made
them all too. Dug them out of the earth,
with our feet, throwing the soil out behind us,
until the burrow grew too deep. Then we
had to take it out grain by grain. We made
our pillars and supports also, using damp
earth for mortar. We don’t mind work,
but we <i>do</i> mind human giants carelessly putting
their feet in the middle of our hill and
breaking in upon our private life. Those
accidents will happen though, and our first
thought is always the babies. They have no
legs, and we have no hands, so we take them
in our jaws, and speed away with them to
our underground chambers, where they will
be safe. I have seen human babies carried
when they <i>did</i> have legs. There is no excuse
for that.</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>
<img src='images/i_177.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>THE HOUSE OF THE MOUND-BUILDER ANT</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>“Another thing, I know better than to
call a human baby an egg, but, would you
believe me, there are lots of people who think
our babies are eggs. I have heard them
called so. Now the reason we are so careful
of our babies is because if there were no
babies there would be no ants, and that
brings me to the queen, for without her there
would be no babies, because there would be
no eggs, and babies always begin by being
eggs. Only the queen lays eggs, remember
that. She is important for this reason, and
no other. She is not our ruler, as some
suppose. In fact, we have no ruler. Ants
do as they please, but they usually please
<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>to do what is best for the whole community.
We have many queens, but they are not
jealous of each other, as the bee queens
are. They do not look like us workers.
They are ever so much larger, and were
hatched with wings. The males also have
wings, but it really matters very little what
they have. They are such a weakly set, and
after they go abroad with the queens, when
they take the one flight of their lives, they
usually die, or something eats them, and so
they are settled. It is the queens who interest
us. Some of them we never see again. They
go off somewhere and start new colonies, or
something may eat them too, but those that
come back either unhook their wings, or
we do it for them. Then they settle down
and begin to lay eggs. Their egg laying is
not after the fashion of bee queens, who go
to certain cells and leave eggs in them. The
ants drop their eggs as they walk around.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Don’t they get lost?” asked Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, indeed. Workers follow and pick
<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>up every one. They take good care of those
precious eggs, too, and when they hatch
into helpless grubs, without wings or feet,
our work begins in earnest. Every morning
we carry them into the sunshine, and bring
them down again at night. We fondle them
too, and keep them clean by licking them
all over. Then of course they must be
fed, and, like other babies, they prefer
milk.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“And I know where you get the milk!”
cried Ruth, all excitement. “It is from the
aphides, isn’t it? The cicada told me. The
aphides are his cousins. He doesn’t think
so much of them, but he says you do.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, why shouldn’t we? They give us
the most delicious milk. We have a fine
herd of aphides now pasturing on a stalk of
sweetbrier, and when Winter comes we will
keep their eggs down in our nest, and put
them on the sweetbrier in the Spring, so that
the little aphides which hatch from them will
have plenty to eat. Yes, and we may even
<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>build tiny sheds for them to keep their enemies
from reaching them.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I wonder if you intend to talk all day?”
broke in a sharp voice. “I sha’n’t wait another
minute.”</p>
<p class='c012'>It was not Mrs. Horntail, as Ruth thought
at first, but Madame Vespa Maculata, or,
in plain English, the white-faced hornet,
and, as she was a fiery lady, no one disputed
her when she said:</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am the largest and most distinguished
of my family, and I build a nest whose delicacy
and beauty make it a wonderful piece of
insect architecture. It is proper that I should
speak first, and I will speak right now.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Speak, by all means,” said the little ant.
“I have quite finished.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Then move,” answered Vespa; “I need
space.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The whole audience gave it to her, including
Ruth, who did not edge up close, as she
did to the other speakers.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is this way,” she whispered to Belinda.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>“Those sharp
people are very
interesting, but it
is better not to get
too near until you
know them quite
well.”</p>
<div class='figleft id005'>
<img src='images/i_182.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“VESPA MACULATA”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“I suppose,” Madame
Vespa was saying,
“I suppose we wasps
can scarcely be called
general favourites. We
have a sting, you see, but,
my friends, that was intended
for laying eggs, and if
we use it on people it is
because they meddle in our
business. It is our way. We <i>will</i> sting those
who bother us. Now, in our community—for
we are social wasps—the female is unquestionably
the better half. We have our rights
and we insist on them. My mate was a good-for-nothing
fellow, like the rest of them. I
<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>didn’t marry him until Fall, and he soon left
me, and did nothing but perch around in the
sunshine with others like him, and I had
all the hard work of the home. Finally he
died. I suppose he couldn’t help that, but
I doubt if he would have made an effort
anyhow. Well, reproaches are of no use
now, for he is very much dead by this time.
I have had a whole Winter’s sleep since I saw
him last. We queen wasps always sleep in
Winter. We are the only ones of the colony
who do not die when cold weather comes.
You see, our community is not like the bees.
It lasts only for a Summer, and each Spring
the queens wake up and start a new one. That
was what I did. I slept in the crevice of a
barn and left it full of plans. You can
imagine the task before me, but I was plucky
and soon chose a tree to suit me. My house
was made of paper, and I should like to say
right here that we wasps are the first paper
makers in the world, for while Egypt still
traced her records in stone, or on the inner
<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>bark of the papyrus, my ancestors were
manufacturing paper, that man has finally
learned to make in the same way. For
paper is only vegetable fibre reduced to a
pulp and pressed into sheets.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth’s eyes were wide with astonishment,
and she was edging nearer to Madame
Vespa.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Can you really make paper out of wood?”
she asked.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course. See my jaws? They are
made to chew wood. Not decayed wood
either. That may do for wasps who live
under ground, for the brownish paper it
makes isn’t strong enough to stand exposure.
I choose good wood, and I make fine gray
paper.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I wish you would tell me how you do it,”
begged Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, I simply gnaw the wood with my
powerful jaws, and chew it until it is a pulpy
mass, then I spread it in a sheet, wherever
I wish it, and smooth and pat it with my feet.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>See how flat they are? I have heard of
people beginning their houses at the cellar
and building up. I consider that perfectly
ridiculous. I always begin at the top.
First, I make a slender stem or support
to fasten the nest to the tree. Then I make
three or more six-sided cells, which I hang
from the support, and lay an egg in each,
fastening it in with glue, for the open side
of the cell is down. After this I enclose
my cells with a wall of paper, and by
this time, I am glad to say, my children begin
to hatch, and though at first they look
like horrid little worms, who can’t help
themselves at all, I always know they
will grow like me soon, and do a great deal
of work.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Feeding them isn’t an easy job, I can
tell you, especially when it is added to my
other duties, but, after a while, each baby
weaves a little silken door over its cell, and
goes to sleep. When she wakes she is a
wasp, and the first thing she does is to wash
<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>her face and polish her antennæ, nor is
it long before she gets to work. My first
children are always workers, and after a
number of them are hatched I can give my
whole time to laying eggs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But when the nest is once done?”
began Ruth, who had forgotten her fear
entirely and was now quite close to Madame
Vespa.</p>
<p class='c012'>“The nest done?” repeated the fiery lady.
“You should know that our nest is never
done. New cells must be added, old walls
gnawed down, and fresh ones built up to
enclose larger combs. Indeed, we are never
idle. We ventilate as the bees do, and we
have sentinels too. Later in the season I
lay eggs that hatch out drones, and last of
all, the queen eggs. They are——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now you would think,” said a yellow
jacket, buzzing up excitedly, “you would
really think that Vespa might mention the
fact that other wasps exist, but not she. Now
I want to tell you, the white-faced hornet
<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span><i>isn’t</i> the whole thing. There are yellow
jackets too.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We have eyes,” said Madame Vespa,
“but go ahead and talk, and get through,
for pity’s sake.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, I mean to talk, and I shall get
through when I please. We always insist
that people shall respect our rights, and
they generally do or—something happens.
Our nests are quite as remarkable as Vespa’s,
though we do not hang them from trees, as
she is in the habit of doing. Our cousin,
Mrs. Polistes, also makes a paper nest, but
she builds only a layer of cells, with not a
sign of a wall about them. Any one can
look right in on her private life.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I’m quite willing they should,” spoke up
Mrs. Polistes, a long, slender brown wasp,
with a yellow line around her body. “I
could wall up my house if I wished to, but
I <i>don’t</i> and I <i>won’t</i>; so there.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“They all have awful tempers, haven’t
they?” said Ruth to Mrs. Horntail.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>“Tempers?” repeated that lady. “They
are perfect pepper pots, though I must say
Mrs. Polistes isn’t usually as bad as the
others.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am talking,” called the yellow jacket,
“and the rest of the audience will please
keep still. As I was saying, though I doubt
if you all heard it, there are other members
of our family who have not been mentioned
yet. We have miners, masons, and carpenters
just like the bees. Of course they are solitary,
and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I object!” interrupted Mrs. Muddauber.
“I won’t be bunched in with ever so many
others. I will speak for myself.”</p>
<p class='c012'>She was quite graceful, with a waist as
slender as a thread, but she jerked her wings
about in such a nervous and fidgety fashion
that Mrs. Horntail declared she must have
St. Vitus’s dance.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I haven’t any such thing,” answered
Mrs. Muddauber, angrily. “I haven’t any
time to dance. I’m nervous, that’s all.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>Anybody would be nervous with all the work
I have to do, and my mate such a lazy fellow
that he never thinks of lending me a helping
mandible in making my home. He says he
doesn’t live very long, and wants to enjoy
himself while he can. Speaking of houses,
I don’t approve of paper ones. I always
make mine of mud. I’m a mason, you see.
I get one room finished, and lay an egg in
it. Then I go to market to get my baby’s
dinner.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But you haven’t any baby,” objected Mrs.
Horntail. “Your egg doesn’t hatch as soon
as it is laid, I know that.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“What of it? The egg will be a baby sometime,
and the baby will be hungry. He will
not be a vegetarian either. He will want
meat. Juicy spiders are what he prefers,
and he likes them fresh. Now if I should
kill them they would be anything but
fresh when he is ready to eat them, so
I merely sting them until they are quite
paralyzed, then I put them in the room
<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>with my egg and seal it up. I build a
number of cells with an egg and spiders
in each, but I am not a jug builder.
I have no time to fool after such silly
affairs as you sometimes see on twigs and
bushes.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“She isn’t artistic enough, she had better
say,” remarked the little jug builder. “My
nests are wonderfully pretty. I have heard
many people say so. I am very careful to
give them a delicate shape. I line them
with silk too, but I will not tell you how I
make this silk. Even the wise men have not
discovered our secret.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Disagreeable creature!” remarked Mrs.
Horntail; “but then what can you expect
from a wasp of any kind? Now who <i>is</i> making
that dreadful noise? I shall certainly
be a wreck before I get away from this place.
People who buzz in such a fashion ought
certainly to be turned out. But there, what’s
the use of asking? I might know it could
only be——”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>“Sir Bumble Bee at your service.” And
a big fellow dressed all in black and gold
buzzed up before the angry Mrs. Horntail.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_191.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_192.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XII<br /> <span class='large'>THE HONEY MAKERS</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>Gaily we fly, my fellows and I,</div>
<div class='line'>Seeking the honey our hives to supply.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>“I am an American,” he went on, in a voice
which all could hear. “A native of this
great and glorious country, and I have
a right to buzz, or make any noise I please.
Those little bees who make honeycomb are
foreigners—immigrants. Useful citizens, I
will grant, but still immigrants. Now, <i>my</i>
ancestors were here when Columbus discovered
America. Do you know that my
<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>name is Bombus, spelt with a big ‘B’? Now,
to show you how useful we bumble bees are,
I shall tell you a story. Once upon a time—are
you all listening?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am,” answered Ruth, quickly. “Please
go on.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, once upon a time there was no
red clover in Australia, and the farmers
of that country decided to take American
seed there and plant it. The first year the
crop grew finely. There were plenty of
flowers, but no seeds. Of course that was
bad, they needed seed for the next year’s
sowing. Well, once more they brought seed
from America, and once more the crop
grew finely, but not a seed came from it.
Then the people began to think, and after
a while they found out the trouble. They
hadn’t the American bumble bee and they
had to have him, for, my friends, we, only,
of all the bees, can fertilize the red clover
blossom, for only we have tongues long enough
to reach its nectar cups and the cell where
<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>its precious pollen is hidden. You may not
think our tongue so long, because it is rolled
up when we are not using it, but look!” And
he unrolled a long brown tongue, which, in
a moment, seemed gone again.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious!” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now do you wonder that we can reach
down into the red clover? When <i>we</i> went
to Australia the clover not only grew, but
set seeds too.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But,” questioned Ruth, “do different
flowers have different bees to come to them,
and how do you know?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Ah, that’s just it. A voice within us
seems to whisper, ‘Go to the blossom whose
heart you can best reach, feed upon its honey
and take your fill of its golden dust.’ We
know it to be the law, and we obey, and,
even as we obey, the pollen clings to our
hairy bodies, and we bear it to the next
flower we visit. This is what usually happens,
but sometimes,” he added, as though
ashamed, “I must say, we break the law, and,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>finding a flower whose honey we cannot reach,
we use our tongues to cut a hole in the
spot where we know the nectar is hidden
and enter from the outside. Plainly speaking,
it is the way of the thief, getting our feast
without paying for it. For the bee who takes
it so carries away no pollen, and an honest
bee should never act so. Now perhaps
you would like to know how we bumble
bees began life? I am sure the little girl
would.” And Ruth nodded an emphatic
“Yes.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We do not live all Winter, as honey bees
do. Only a few queens sleep through the cold
months, and they do not need food; so while
we make a little honey to eat in Summer,
we do not lay by any stores for Winter,
and naturally we make no combs. What
looks like them are the silken cocoons our
babies spin. If I were a queen, I wouldn’t
be here. Queens have too much work to
do to be abroad in Summer. You may see
them in the early Spring flying about and
<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>hunting up good home sites. A hole under
a log is often chosen, and gathering nectar
and pollen the queen carries it to this underground
palace. In the mass she lays an egg,
then gathers more, in which she also lays an
egg. In this way her house is soon full.
When the eggs hatch, the babies eat the pollen
and nectar they find around them. I was
just such a baby, and, being a gentleman, I
haven’t much to do. I shall probably marry
a queen some day, but now I simply play in
the sunshine. We bumble bees belong to
the social branch of the family, but there are
many bees who live alone. They all follow
trades. There is the carpenter, who isn’t
furry like us, but black and shiny. She can
bore right into solid wood and make cells
for her eggs. Then there are the miners,
who burrow into the ground, and the masons,
who make nests out of grains of sand glued
together, or out of clay or mud. Some of
the carpenters line their nests with pieces
of leaves, which they cut out with their sharp
<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>jaws. They have been called upholsterers
and they——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“This is all very interesting,” interrupted
a honey bee, “but really I must speak now.
I have so much to say, and my work is
waiting.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Talk, by all means,” answered Sir Bumble
Bee, gallantly. “I am a gentleman, and I
always yield to ladies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Thank you, but I can’t call myself a
lady. I am just a worker honey bee. My
name is Apis Mellifica, but I do belong to a
wonderful family. I will admit that. We are
the greatest wax makers in the world. I
heard somebody once say that bees are always
in a hurry, while butterflies seem to take
their time. Now there’s a good reason
for that. Butterflies haven’t any work to
do. They do not even see their children, and
never take care of them, while bees have
thousands of babies to feed and look after.
Then you must know we clean house every
day, for we are extremely neat housekeepers.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>We clean ourselves also, and we have combs
and brushes for that purpose.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The words combs and brushes seemed to
have quite an effect on the bees and ants
in the audience, and many began to make
their toilets, Miss Apis among them. They
looked so very funny that Ruth laughed outright,
but she quickly settled down to listen,
as Miss Apis, feeling herself quite clean,
said briskly:</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>
<img src='images/i_199.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>THE QUEEN BEE AND HER BODYGUARD OF DRONES</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Now I will tell a story. Once upon a
time there was a large hive under an apple
tree. A hedge sheltered it from the wind,
and the tree shaded it from the sun, which
made it very pleasant for the family who
lived there. It was a very large family,
for there were thousands and thousands of
members, but they lived together in peace,
each doing her own share of work. Of
course there was a queen. She had a long,
slender body and short wings. This did not
matter, for she had only flown from the hive
once, and then she had a bodyguard of
drones. Maybe you think that because she
was a queen she had nothing to do. It is
true, she was not obliged to gather honey,
make wax, clean house, nurse the children,
or anything of that sort, but she was kept
<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>busy laying eggs. She laid thousands every
day.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth opened her eyes wide. “Think of
it, Belinda!” she said. “Thousands of eggs
a day! Just suppose she was a hen.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“She is something far more important,”
answered Miss Apis, “and her eggs are of
much more consequence. Besides the queen
there were drones and workers in this big
family. The drones did no work at all,
though they were large and thick-bodied.
Indeed, all they seemed fit for was to fly with
the queen when she took her one trip abroad,
and to eat what the workers gathered.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“See here!” said a drone from the back of
the assembly. “I am getting tired of being
called lazy. I should like to say right here
that we drones haven’t any honey sac nor
any pollen baskets, not even a pollen brush,
like Mrs. Carpenter Bee, so how can we
gather pollen or honey? Besides, we haven’t
any sting to defend ourselves with.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We will not argue the point,” said Miss
<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>Apis, “but go on to the workers, who formed
the largest part of the colony. They were
hatched to work, and they were willing to
work until they died. They had strong wings,
lots of eyes, and three stomach sacs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I can’t see any use in so many
stomachs,” said Mrs. Horntail, and Ruth
agreed with her, though she did not say so.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You would if you were a bee,” said Miss
Apis, mildly. “You see, or maybe you don’t,
that eating honey, and just swallowing it,
are two different things. When a bee just
swallows honey it passes through the strainer,
or fine hairs, in the first sac, so that every
speck of pollen may be taken out, and into the
second one, where it remains until the bee is
ready to unswallow it in the hive. But when
a bee wishes to eat this honey it passes on
into the third sac, or the real stomach, and
is digested.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I am sorry I spoke,” said Mrs.
Horntail, “for I certainly do not enjoy these
details.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>“I can’t help that,” answered Miss Apis,
undisturbed, “I am telling facts. Not only
had these workers three stomach sacs, but
they also had pollen baskets on their hind
legs, for it is from the pollen gathered in the
flowers and mixed with honey and water
that the bee bread fed to the baby bees is
made. Not all the workers gathered honey,
though. Some made wax and built combs,
and this was a very hard job, for they were
obliged to hang from the ceiling and pick
wax from the under side of their bodies, then
chew it and plaster it to the walls. This
wax is in eight scales, or pockets, on the under
side of the worker bee’s body, and it is made
by what she eats. When the pockets of one
bee were emptied, the next one took her place,
and when the lump on the side of the wall
was large enough another set of bees formed
it into cells. Of course you know that the
cells in a beehive are always six-sided. That
is because six-sided cells use all the space,
and are also strongest. At least the wise
<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>men say that is probably the reason why
we make them so, and they think they know.
Other of the workers took care of the babies.
They fed them and kept them clean, and
some aired the hive.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth’s eyes were big with questions. Miss
Apis saw and continued:</p>
<p class='c012'>“They did this by moving their wings
rapidly as if they were flying, and when
many did it at the same time the good air
was driven around the hive and the bad air
out. Then, of course, there had to be sentinels
to speak to every bee who passed in, and make
sure she had the right to enter, for human
people are not our only robbers. There
are flies that look much like us, but ask them
to show their pollen baskets, and they can’t
do it. Now it happened one Spring in the
hive I am telling you about that the queen
heard a sound that she didn’t like at all.
It was a thin piping, and it came from one
of the brood cells, which is the nursery of
the hive.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“‘It sounds like a young queen,’ she said,
‘but I have laid no queen eggs.’ The workers
stopped their tasks long enough to talk about
it. They knew perfectly well that it was a
young queen, and they also knew how she
happened to be there, even though the old
queen had laid no eggs in the cells on the
edge of the comb meant for queen eggs.
The old queen did not wish another royal
lady, but the workers knew that if anything
happened to the old queen there would be
none to take her place, and such a thing
must not be allowed. So they had taken
down two waxen walls between three small
brood cells, where a worker egg lay, and so
made it into a royal cell. They bit away the
wax with their jaws, and pressed the rough
edges into shape with their feet, and when
the egg within hatched, instead of feeding
the baby with flower dust and honey and
water, as they would have done had they
intended it to grow into a worker, they fed
it royal jelly. And so after it had grown and
<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>spun a cocoon, within which it had lain for
sixteen days, it had become a young queen,
ready to leave her cell. But the workers
knew it would never do for her to come out
just yet, for she and the old queen would have
to fight, and one would surely die.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, how dreadful!” cried Ruth. “Why
should they?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Because only one queen may reign in a
hive.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘We will keep her in her cell a little
longer,’ the workers said to each other. And
they built a wall of wax over her door, leaving
only a hole large enough for her to thrust
out her tongue so that they might feed her.
But though she couldn’t get out, she could
complain.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I should have complained too,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well this young queen complained in
earnest, and the old queen heard her, and
of course she tried to get to the cell of this
pert young one, and settle her for all time.
This the workers would not allow. They
<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>would not touch their old queen, but they
formed a bodyguard about the cell of the new
one, and so protected her.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘Well,’ said the old queen at last, ‘I
can’t stand this. I will not stay here. I
shall take my friends with me and fly away
to a place where only I shall be queen.’”</p>
<p class='c012'>“She grew more and more excited, as time
passed, and, as many of the workers were
excited too, the hive was in much confusion.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘We are much too crowded,’ said some
of the workers.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘I can’t seem to settle down to work,’
answered others. ‘What can you expect when
thousands of children are added to a family
in a week? The time comes when the house
must be made larger, or some of the members
must move.’”</p>
<p class='c012'>“‘We will <i>move</i>,’ said the old queen in a
tone of decision. ‘We will move right now.
Those who are my friends, come. The others
may stay with the piping thing in yonder
cell.’”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>“And without further words, the old queen
flew away, followed by a great many workers.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now I know what swarming means!”
cried Ruth. “I used to wonder about it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Miss Apis nodded.</p>
<p class='c012'>“When the swarm was well away, the
workers who were left in the hive hastened to
let out the new queen.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“She must have been glad,” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very likely,” agreed Miss Apis. “She
began her reign with a flying trip into the
world with the drones. But after this, she
came back to the hive, and settled down to
the business of egg-laying. Of course the
workers took up the same old tasks, for whatever
happens, workers will work. That is
why they have no love for the drones, and
when Winter comes they drive these lazy
ones from the hive.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I think I feel a little bit sorry for the
drones,” said Ruth, “if they can’t help being
lazy, as that drone said a while ago.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, it is our way,” answered Miss
<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>Apis. “Only those who have worked in
the Summer have a right to eat in the Winter.
Now my work is calling me, and I must
leave. This story of one hive is true of all.
I hope you have enjoyed it, and so good-by.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“There, she is finished at last,” said Mrs.
Horntail. “I think this whole meeting has
been most tiresome.”</p>
<p class='c012'>But Ruth did not agree with her.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_208.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_209.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> <span class='large'>THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfurl.</div>
<div class='line in38'>—<i>Anna L. Barbauld.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>“It seems nothing but butterflies!” cried
Ruth, running out into the garden as
soon as breakfast was over.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course,” answered a voice, “the Lepidoptera
will meet by the summer-house.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Does that mean butterflies? And oh,
please, may I come?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, to both questions,” was wafted back
from the beautiful creature flitting so gracefully
on the light warm breeze.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Just like a flower with wings,” thought
<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>Ruth as, holding Belinda closely, she followed
as fast as she could go.</p>
<p class='c012'>Indeed, they all seemed like flowers with
wings, she decided, as she came into the middle
of the gathering.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is the most beautiful we have been to
yet,” she whispered to Belinda, “and I am
sure it is going to be the most interesting.
I couldn’t begin to count them.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth might well say this, for nearly all
the fifty-four families of moths to be found
in America north of Mexico were represented
by at least one member, while there were
many from the four families of butterflies
and the two families of skippers.</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth came only just in time, for already
one of the moths had begun to speak. He
was a handsome fellow, with fore wings in
different shades of olive.</p>
<p class='c012'>“My friends,” he said, “I am called the
modest sphinx, and, that being the case, you
may imagine how painful it is for me to put
myself forward in this way. I have been
<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>asked, however, to give you a few general
facts. Why I am expected to know these
facts is, perhaps, because, being a sphinx,
I should also be wise. Yet I am not the only
sphinx here, and, if I remember aright, the
old and historic sphinx <i>asked</i>, rather than
<i>answered</i>, questions.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“He uses awfully big words,” Ruth whispered
to her usual confidant, Belinda.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now to begin,” went on the sphinx,
“you know, I suppose, that we belong
to the order Lepidoptera, which means the
scale wings, because the colour of our wings
is made by scales so tiny that they are really
like dust. We are divided into moths, butterflies,
and skippers, and all of us are messengers
for the flowers, carrying the precious
pollen from blossom to blossom. Our children
are generally enemies to the plants.
They are called caterpillars, and seem to
have a great many legs, but really only six
of them are true legs and remain when the
youngster is full grown. The others are
<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>prolegs. There may be two or there may be
ten. They help in walking, but are shed
with the last skin.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Alas!” sighed a voice in the corner.
“I haven’t any to shed—that is, in the
middle of my body.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth turned as Mr. Looper, otherwise
known as the measuring worm, made this
remark. She would have asked a question,
for Mr. Looper, rearing his head after his
own queer fashion, seemed quite ready to
talk, but the sphinx stopped her.</p>
<p class='c012'>“This is not the time to talk about individual
legs,” he said. “We are trying to get
at general differences. Now there are certain
ways in which all moths differ from all
butterflies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I should say so,” said Miss Papilio, a
handsome tiger swallowtail. “Moths have
short, stout bodies, and ours are slender.”
And Miss Papilio circled above them so that
all might admire her delicate body and the
beauty of her tawny yellow wings, with their
<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>gray bands and stripes, and their ends pointed
in true swallowtail fashion.</p>
<p class='c012'>“And here is another difference,” she added,
coming to rest with her wings folded together
vertically. “We always carry our wings so
when we are not flying. You moths hold
yours horizontally, or sloping. Never upward.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, that’s true,” said the sphinx, “and
you know we generally have beautiful feathery
antennæ, though I, and a few others,
are an exception to that rule, but you butterflies
can boast only very thread-like antennæ,
with a knob at the end.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Enough about that subject,” spoke up
Miss Papilio. “What I am wondering about
is why moths like to fly at night, or in the
twilight. Now, butterflies must have sunshine.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We love the cool, soft night, I can’t
tell you why,” answered the sphinx, “and
we sleep through the noisy day.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But it is so dangerous to sleep as you do,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>when birds and other nuisances are up and
doing.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, birds are pests, there is no doubt
about it, and if it hadn’t been for them we
insects would have possessed the earth long
ago, but you forget, we always choose a place
that is nearly the colour of ourselves, and we
look so much like our surroundings that it
would take a sharp eye to find us. We are
not brightly coloured, as a rule, like the butterflies,
or if we wear gay colours at all it is usually
on our hind wings, which we hide under the
fore wings. Now the general remarks being
made, the audience may view the exhibits
and hear their individual histories.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was up in a second.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I must talk to that funny measuring
worm,” she said to herself. “Why, where
is he?” she added, standing before the bush
on which she had seen him a while before.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Right here,” answered what Ruth thought
was a twig, and which proved to be none other
than Mr. Looper himself, who raised his head
<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>and began to walk on his hind legs in his own
eccentric fashion. Indeed, not only he, but
a number of other Mr. Loopers, all showing
themselves in different positions.</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<img src='images/i_215.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘SMART CHILDREN, AREN’T THEY?’ ASKED SOME MOTHS”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'>“Smart children, aren’t they?” asked some
moths, variously coloured in black and brown
and yellow, hovering above the tree where
the loopers were feeding. “They are ours—that
<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>is, not exactly ours, but ours will
be like them when they are hatched. These
fellows will soon make little cradles of leaves
and go into the ground to go to sleep, and
when they come out they will be like us.
Wonderful, isn’t it?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes,” agreed Ruth, “but I’d like to know
about their legs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I can explain that,” said Mr. Looper
quickly. “I have no legs in the middle of
my body, and as that part of me isn’t supported,
I can’t walk like other caterpillars, for
I <i>am</i> a caterpillar, even if they <i>do</i> call me a
worm.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“The legs, or the want of them, is a fault
of his ancestors no doubt,” interrupted a
voice. “Probably they walked in his idiotic
fashion for fun, or to be different, even when
they did have the right number of legs, and
so lost the use of them, and the legs, too,
finally. That often happens. I could tell
you of cases——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why, you look something like Miss Papilio,”
<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>said Ruth, turning to the last speaker,
and interrupting her reminiscences.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I am a Miss Papilio,” was the answer,
“but not the one you heard a while ago.
She was a tiger swallowtail, while I am a
black swallowtail, different, but quite as
handsome in my way. We swallowtails all
believe in dressing well. We are butterflies,
not moths, but though I am so beautiful,
I serve some very humble plants. I carry
the precious pollen for them. My children,
I’m afraid, will not be so helpful, but what
can one do? I happen to like honey, but
they prefer the leaves of parsley, carrot,
celery, and such things. They have large
appetites, too.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Everything seems to have an appetite,”
said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, my children will be able to eat, I
can tell you. See, I have laid my eggs on
this bed of parsley. Ah! there’s a larva
now. Not mine, but mine will be like it.
See, he is green, ringed with black and yellow.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>If you tease him he will stick out his yellow
horns at you, and you won’t like the odour
either. Would you believe I was once like
that, and I slept in a pupa case like the one
under the twig there? You know there always
comes a time in the life of every caterpillar,
if he lives long enough of course, when
he stops eating for good and wants nothing
so much as to sleep. That came to me, and
I crawled from the parsley bed to an old rail
fence and began to spin. The silk was in
my body, and it came through two tubes in
my lower lip.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That isn’t the way spiders spin,” said
Ruth. “They——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I was not a spider,” said Miss Papilio.
“I was a caterpillar, and they always spin
with their mouths. So that is what I did,
and before long I had lashed myself securely
to the fence by strong silken loops. Then I
shed my pretty suit, and my skin shrivelled
until it was a hard case. In that safe cradle
I went to sleep, and came out in the Spring
<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>with six legs instead of sixteen, a slender
tongue in place of sharp, hungry jaws, and,
best of all, four beautiful wings. Oh, the
joy of sailing through wonderful space, and
sipping nectar from the sweetest flowers!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“We have all felt that way,” said a large
red-brown butterfly, whose wings, lighter
below, were veined and bordered by black,
with a double row of white spots on the edges.
“Look at the chrysalis from which I came, and
say no more. Can you guess my name?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was obliged to confess that she could
not.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I have often seen you though,” she added,
“or butterflies just like you.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Probably you have. I am called the
monarch, and, frail as I look, I can fly
hundreds of miles without resting. I was
just laying some eggs on this milkweed, and
since you are here, you might use your eyes a
little. You may see something worth while.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was using her eyes as best she could,
and soon she spied a number of caterpillars
<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>chewing away upon the milkweed leaves.
They were lemon or greenish-yellow, banded
with black.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Will they grow into butterflies like you?”
she asked.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes,” was the answer, “but there is something
more to see.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Again Ruth looked, and now saw what
appeared to be a little green jewel dotted
with golden nails.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh!” she cried, “how lovely!”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I thought you would say that,” and
the monarch fluttered her wings proudly.
“That is our chrysalis, the cradle in which
we sleep for our great transformation. That
is one thing the viceroy can’t do, though she
mimics us as much as possible.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Mimics you?” repeated Ruth, in surprise.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes, certainly. You see we monarchs
are wrapped in a magic perfume—that no
birds like, and so they never try to eat us.
Now, Mrs. Viceroy hasn’t this perfume,
and to protect herself she tries to imitate
<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>our family colours, so that the birds, mistaking
her for one of us, may leave her alone too.
She even flies as we do. See her over there?
She is smaller than I am, but quite like me,
except for the black line on her hind wings.
A careless observer would scarcely notice
that, however.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The monarch floated off to lay some more
eggs, and Ruth found herself in the midst of
ever so many tawny brown butterflies, all
bordered and checkered with black, and
having wings covered with silver spots.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, you are so lovely!” she cried, with
shining eyes, and then, as they passed on,
calling back their name, “Fritillaries!” “Fritillaries!”
she turned to see many other dazzling
creatures fluttering about her. Some
she had never seen before, but others were
like old friends. There were the meadow
browns, the stout-bodied coppers, the slender,
beautiful blues, and more white cabbage
butterflies than she could count. The handsome
red admiral flirted with the pretty
<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>painted lady, and the mourning cloaks, with
their purple-brown wings, yellow-bordered
and marked with light blue spots, were flitting
about, telling everybody how they had slept
all Winter as butterflies, which is most uncommon
in the butterfly world, and were
for that reason the first to show themselves
in the Spring.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I used to wonder why you were out so
early,” said Ruth, “and once I found one
of you in a crevice on a Winter day, and I
couldn’t understand about it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, you do now. We hibernate like
many animals.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But you must have been eggs in the
beginning,” said Ruth. “The oil beetle told
me that all insects begin as eggs. And will
you please tell me how a butterfly knows the
right kind of plant to lay her eggs on? It
always seems to be just the one her caterpillars
like to eat. She doesn’t eat it herself.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Of course not,” answered one of the
mourning cloaks. “You need but look at
<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>out tongues to see that we eat only honey.
I can’t answer your question, for none of us
knows. Something tells us the proper plant
for our eggs. We lay them there without
hesitation, and we lay a great many. This
is necessary, for one never knows what
may happen. Most of them may make a
meal for something before they even hatch
into caterpillars, and if some miss this fate,
and do hatch, there are any number of birds,
and their enemies, who like nothing so well
as a fat, juicy caterpillar for dinner. Then
if that danger is escaped, there are the birds
again, and other hungry things, all anxious
to get a taste of the butterfly. So you can
understand that in a life so full of accidents it
is important to have many eggs to begin with.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes,” said Ruth, “but——”</p>
<p class='c012'>She didn’t finish, for just then she put her
hand on what she thought was a leaf, and, much
to her surprise, she found that it was alive.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span></div>
<div class='chapter'>
</div>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_224.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div>
<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIV<br /> <span class='large'>REAL FAIRIES</span></h2>
</div>
<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>or the possible glory that underlies</div>
<div class='line'>The passing phase of the meanest things.</div>
<div class='line in34'><i>Mrs. Whitney.</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c011'>Alive it certainly was, this exquisite
green moth, which rose on shimmering
wings at Ruth’s touch. No wonder
Ruth almost screamed aloud in her surprised
delight.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Are you a moonbeam?” she asked. “You
are just lovely enough for one.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, I am not a moonbeam,” was the
answer, “<i>but I am the moon moth, the
Luna</i>. I am a messenger for the night-blooming
flowers, for only the long tongues
of the moths may reach through the deep
tubes to their honeyed hearts. I was taking
my day nap when you touched me.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>
<img src='images/i_225.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
<div class='ic002'>
<p>“‘I AM THE MOON MOTH, THE LUNA’”</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>“I didn’t know you were there,” said
Ruth, “you looked so much like a leaf.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“That is what I wished to look like.
Many others are sleeping the same way.
You wouldn’t know them unless they moved.
Our larvæ are not sleeping, however. I
can answer for that. They are quite awake
and busy eating the leaves of hickory, walnut,
and other trees of that family. Maybe you
have seen them? They are large and handsome,
and they spin very snug cocoons of
silk, wrapped about with a dead leaf, very
much like those made by the polyphemus
babies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Now you know your cocoon never had
the quantity of silk in it that mine had,”
said a yellowish-brown moth, rising from the
trunk of a nearby tree.</p>
<p class='c012'>She was very handsome. There were window-like
spots on her wings, and dusky bands
<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>edged with pink. Not far away were her
larvæ, having a good time chewing the leaves
of a plumb tree. They were light green, with
an oblique yellow line on each side, and a
purplish-brown V-shaped mark near the end
of their bodies.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You may always know the polyphemus
children by that mark,” said Mrs. Polyphemus,
for it was she who had interrupted the
Luna’s remarks. “Now, speaking of cocoons,”
she went on, “as I said before, ours
contain a great deal of silk. They have been
used in the making of silk too. Shall I tell
you my story?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Of course Ruth wanted to hear it.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Very well,” said Mrs. Polyphemus. “I
belong to the family of giant silkworms,
though, of course, we are not worms. I
began my life on an elm leaf. It was a lovely
morning in May when I was hatched, and
the world seemed a beautiful place to live
in. I did not spend much time admiring
the scenery, though, for I was hungry. I
<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>ate the shell of my egg for the first course,
then I began to chew elm leaves, and I kept
it up steadily. Naturally I grew, and I
changed my skin five times. When I was
ready to make my cocoon I found a twig on
the ground among the dead leaves, and spun
a fluffy mass of gray-white silk all about it,
and this wrapped in a dead leaf——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“What?” interrupted Mrs. Cecropia, “spin
your cocoon on the ground? What a careless
habit. Why not fasten it to the twig
of a tree or——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Inside a curled leaf?” added Mrs. Promethea.
“That is the safest way. The wind
will rock it and——,”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I said nothing about curled leaves,”
answered Mrs. Cecropia. “I never use a
curled leaf. I leave that for the leaf rollers.
I——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, I know swinging would make me
ill,” declared Mrs. Polyphemus, “and I prefer
the ground for my cocoon.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Quite right,” agreed Mrs. Hummingbird
<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>Moth. “The ground for me, too. Our
children always go down and——”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Gracious! you don’t suppose my children
would go down in the ground?” asked Mrs.
Polyphemus. “No, indeed; they will sleep
in their cocoons, among the fallen leaves on
top. It is snug and cozy too, this cocoon,
or it will be, I should rather say, for it isn’t
made yet. I remember mine though. A
mass of coarse silk first, and a coating of
varnish inside, then more silk, and another
coating of varnish. I slept soundly, I can
tell you, and when I awoke in the Spring
I had only to send from my body a milky
fluid, which softened the varnish and silk,
until a doorway was made for me to come
out of. I felt very weak, miserable, and
forlorn just at first. I had but six legs,
and my wings seemed of no use whatever,
but after I had hung a while to a twig, and
my wings had grown dry and strong, I was
a different being. My body was lighter
and smaller too. Do you know why?”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>The question came suddenly, and Ruth,
though she had been listening intently, could
think of no answer.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Because the fluids from it were pumped
into my wings,” said Mrs. Polyphemus.
“The next time you see a moth just out of
its cocoon, hanging by its feet and waving
its wings to and fro, you may know it is pumping
fluids into them, so they may grow big
and strong. You may see many wonderful
things if you only keep your eyes open.
Well, to go back to my story: After my wings
were strong, I could fly and be as happy as
I pleased. Now it is time for me to lay my
eggs.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I wondered if you ever meant to stop
talking,” said Mrs. Promethea. “There are
others, you know. I really can’t see how you
Polyphemuses grow up, considering the careless
way your cocoons lie about on the
ground. Perhaps the people who say that
caterpillar children are not cared for have
you in mind. Generally I believe it is better
<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>for children to help themselves. You never
hear caterpillars say, ‘I can’t do this, and will
some one please help me to change my skin,
or some one spin my cocoon for me?’ No,
they do these things for themselves, and ask
no advice about them either. Still I do believe
one can’t be too careful about cocoons,
for once you are in one and asleep you can’t
defend yourself. It is much better to make
them safe to begin with. That was what I
thought when I made mine. I enclosed it
in a leaf, and then to make sure the leaf
wouldn’t fall in the Winter winds, I fastened
it to a branch of the tree with a thread of
silk. No wind or anything else could break
that thread. It was so strong. Just try
it,” she added to Ruth, “the next time you
find a Promethean cocoon. You will probably
see a number together, but all will have
the same strong fastenings. Another thing,
I didn’t have to make a hole to get out by,
as Mrs. Polyphemus told us she did. My
cocoon had a valve in the top, and I had only
<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>to crawl through that. Talk about difference
in looks! My mate is so unlike me you would
think he belonged to another species. Our
children are very handsome. Fully two inches
long and blue-green in colour, not to mention
the row of lovely black knobs along their
bodies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“They can’t compare with ours,” said a
fine cecropia, settling on a branch and spreading
her beautiful wings.</p>
<p class='c012'>She was very large and very handsome.
Her wings were grayish, with many markings
of white, brick-red, pink, and violet, and with
splendid eye spots on each.</p>
<p class='c012'>“We are the largest of the giant silkworms,”
she said, “and our larvæ are as handsome
in their way as we are in ours. You can see
them on the plum trees over there. They are
wearing their last suits, of course, for, like
all caterpillars, they eat so much they need
bigger skins every little while.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“They <i>are</i> pretty for caterpillars,” agreed
Ruth, looking at the blue-green creatures,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>with their knobs of red, yellow, and blue,
all bearing black bristles.</p>
<p class='c012'>“They are pretty enough for <i>anything</i>,”
declared Mrs. Cecropia, with decision. “Our
cocoon is large and fine too. Indeed, everything
about us is first class. We never enclose
our cocoon in a leaf, though sometimes
a dead leaf may cling to the outside. We
spin it along a branch, to which it is securely
fastened. Some are larger and looser than
others, but all are beauties.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, <i>I</i> can’t boast of fine clothes,” said
a plainly dressed little moth, who was quietly
hiding on a shrub, “but I belong to a very
old family, and a very useful one. We
were known and appreciated in Asia more
than four thousand years ago. I, too, came
from a tiny egg. My body was black, covered
by stiff hairs, and of course I was hungry.
I liked best the leaf of the mulberry tree, and
I ate so much I had to change my dress often,
as all caterpillars do. They all get too big
for their skins, and that is what I did, but,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>finally, I lost my appetite, and I knew the
time had come for me to spin my silken cradle.
And now I may boast with good reason, for
I am the true silkworm. My cocoon is spun
in one thread a <i>quarter of a mile long</i>.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Indeed!” said Mrs. Cecropia. “I should
like to know how you measured it.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I haven’t measured it,” the silkworm
answered, “but the wise men have. Not
my particular cocoon, you understand, but
those of our family, and they are said to
average that. They are very pretty too,
these cocoons. I suppose you have all seen
them? I was nine days making mine, and
three days after that I cast off my baby
clothes and went to sleep. I was very weak
when I awoke and left my cocoon cradle,
but I soon grew stronger and could walk, for
you must know that the family to which I
belong is not in the habit of flying. Its
members are homebodies and seldom use
their wings. Many of us, I may say the
majority, do not live to be moths, for our
<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>cocoons are so precious, because of the long
silk thread, that the larvæ are killed before
they come out.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Why?” said Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Because when the larvæ come out they
break the thread. And now perhaps you
understand how very useful we are, for all
the silks, satins, ribbons, and velvets in the
world are made by us.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.</p>
<p class='c012'>“It is a big boast, isn’t it?” said a very
small straw-coloured moth, flitting rapidly
about. “It is a true one, though. My children
make cocoons too, and I made one
myself, but it was quite unlike a silkworm’s,
and I have an idea we are not considered
useful either. I do not work among the
flowers. I belong to the Wool Exchange, at
least that is what somebody said about me
once. My eggs will not be laid on a plant,
or any growing thing. I shall choose carpet,
or fine cloth, or something of that sort, and
when my babies hatch they will gnaw away
<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>the fibres of the cloth, and eat and eat. Then
what they don’t eat they will use to cover
themselves with, binding the threads together
with silk from their own bodies.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I know you, anyway,” said Ruth. “You
ate my Winter dress full of holes. At least
it was some moths like you.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“No, my dear, not moths, but their caterpillar
babies did the eating.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, it wasn’t nice, whoever did it,”
declared Ruth, with some heat.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Nice?” repeated Mrs. Clothes Moth.
“I suppose it is nice to kill the silkworm
babies and make dresses from their cradles,
and nice to do a lot of other things that I
could mention. I guess you had better not
talk.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth was silent. She felt she had the
worst of the argument.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You must not mind,” whispered a large
and beautiful moth whose wings were of
many delicate shades of ash-gray marked with
black.</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>Ruth turned to the speaker.</p>
<p class='c012'>“You are something like the sphinx moth,”
she said.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Yes. I am a sphinx,” was the answer.
“All of us look somewhat alike, though some
are smaller than others, and colours vary.
But our wings are always clear cut, our scales
close fitting, and our colours quiet; a tailormade
air about us, as it were. We are sometimes
called hawk moths, because our wings
are narrow, long, and strong, and sometimes
hummingbird moths, because we fly
at twilight, and poise above a flower while
extracting its honey, just as hummingbirds
do.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But why are you named the sphinx?”
asked Ruth. “You haven’t told me that.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, you see, our larvæ have a queer
habit of rearing themselves up in front
and remaining in that position, and the
wise men thought they looked something
like the old Egyptian Sphinx. There’s a
sphinx moth caterpillar on that tomato vine.”</p>
<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>“He is awful fat and green,” said Ruth.
“Can you show me his cocoon?”</p>
<p class='c012'>Even the larva laughed when Ruth asked
this question.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Dear, dear! what ignorance!” said the
moth. “Just put your hand in that soft
earth and take out what is there.”</p>
<p class='c012'>Ruth obeyed, and presently brought up a
dark brown case, pointed at each end.</p>
<p class='c012'>“That is our pupa case,” explained the
moth, “and in it is wrought our wonderful
transformation. We do not weave cocoons,
but the little brown case holds the same miracle
of life and growth.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, there is just as much life and growth
under my old blanket as in any pupa case,
or cocoon, that was ever made.”</p>
<p class='c012'>The speaker was a hairy caterpillar, chestnut
brown in the middle, and black at each end.</p>
<p class='c012'>“That’s the woolly bear,” explained the
sphinx. “Just pick him up, and see what
will happen.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“I know,” answered Ruth, but nevertheless
<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>she took the little brown fellow in her
hand, whereupon he promptly curled up in a
tight ball and rolled to the ground.</p>
<p class='c012'>“I will do it every time,” said the caterpillar.
“I have been called the hedge hog
because of that cute trick.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“It <i>is</i> cute,” agreed Ruth, “but what do
you mean by your blanket?”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Oh, as to that, I don’t fool after cocoons,
or pupa cases, or the rest of it. I simply
take off my hair when I am ready for my
long sleep, and make it into a blanket, which
covers me snugly.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“But it is a cocoon just the same,” persisted
Ruth.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Well, you may call it what you please,
I say it is a blanket. When I wake from my
sleep under it I am no longer a caterpillar,
but a moth.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“Like me,” added a dull yellow moth,
spreading her black dotted wings. “I am
the Isabella, if you care to know.”</p>
<p class='c012'>“So you see,” rejoined the woolly bear,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>“it really doesn’t matter whether it is a cocoon,
a pupa case, or a blanket which encloses
the glory of our transformation, the
marvel of it is just the same.”</p>
<p class='c014'>Long after they had drifted by, that gay
company of butterflies and moths, Ruth sat
thinking of the wonder of it all.</p>
<p class='c012'>“Didn’t I tell you, Belinda,” she whispered,
“didn’t I tell you it was really living
in Fairyland, and now, when we can hear
what they say, and they tell us such interesting
things, it is more Fairyland than ever.
The Wind told us to watch and listen, and
we will do that. We will watch and listen
with all our might, for oh! Belinda, there is
such a lot to learn yet.”</p>
<div class='figcenter id004'>
<img src='images/i_240.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
</div>
<div class='pbb'>
<hr class='pb c004' />
</div>
<div class='tnotes'>
<div class='section ph2'>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
<div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<ol class='ol_1 c003'>
<li>Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
</li>
<li>Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63992 ***</div>
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