“‘Beard the lion in his denThe Ferris in his hall,’”
“‘Beard the lion in his denThe Ferris in his hall,’”
said Dick Trent, warningly. “He won’t favor us with any more stories if you are not careful how you offend him.”
“I’d just as soon he’d spout all the poetry he wants to if it relieves him any, as long as he doesn’t forget how to tell stories,” Shorty remarked as he contentedly munched a piece of toast.
“How very kind of you,” said Dave, sarcastically. “I thank you with all my heart for your liberality.”
“My which? Say, Dave, if that ever belonged to me, I call you all to witness that I disown it from this time on. It’s no friend of mine from this time on.”
“You’d better hang on to it, Shorty. It’s thebest kind of thing to have around at times,” said Mr. Hollis, as he rose to leave the table.
In the afternoon scouting parties were sent out in all directions to find out the nature of the surrounding country. Steve Thomas, Bert, Tom, Bob, Shorty, and Jim Dawson were sent off to scour the woods in an easterly direction from the lake.
For a considerable distance they tramped along, talking of the different plants and shrubs they came across and naming the birds they saw in the trees. They threw peanuts to the squirrels that peeped inquiringly at them from branches over their heads or ventured shyly from the shelter of their holes. They imitated the clear notes of the birds until the little songsters paused to look wonderingly at these strange creatures that could not fly and yet sang like themselves. Timid little rabbits watched the boys with soft, brown eyes, not knowing whether or not to sally forth from their security even for the tempting carrot that Bert held out so coaxingly. When he threw it at a distance, however, one little fellow, braver than the others, his appetite overcoming his fears, ran forth quickly, snatched the carrot and scurried back in a panic to his burrow, where, with his bright eyes fixed on these humans who had been so kind to him, he ate contentedly.
Suddenly the quiet woods rang with shouts and cries, the barking of a dog and the noise of people running to and fro furiously. Alarmed, the boys started on a run for the place from which the cries seemed to come. They fairly gasped when they came upon the cause of all the commotion.Three men, of the roughest order, were dancing distractedly around, trying to beat off a swarm of bees that surrounded them, and yelling like mad, while a big collie dog, wild with excitement, barked with all his might.
Three men of the roughest order were dancing distractedly around.Three men of the roughest order were dancing distractedly around.
“Say, this is better than a circus,” Shorty shouted, “only I’m glad that those hoboes and not I are the whole show now.”
“Shut up, Shorty. The question now, is, what we can do to help the poor fellows out,” said Tom; then, turning to the tramps, he yelled, “You’d better make a dive for the brook and get under water. It’s right through the trees to your left,” he added, as the men, now nearly crazy with pain, started to follow his advice.
Rushing frantically to the brook, they plunged in head first, while the bees, deprived of their prey, flew off angrily into the woods to search for new victims upon whom they might vent their spite. When the tramps came up, dripping from the water, they were a sight to behold. Their faces were swollen so that their eyes seemed to bemere slits and their ears appeared to be twice their natural size.
The boys at once ran to get mud to put on the red, angry wounds. The tramps submitted with indifferent grace to the treatment, grumbling that they “didn’t see what good being all smeared up with mud was going to do.”
As soon as the boys had done what they could to ease the pain, the tramps declared that they would have to be moving on “because them pesky critters might come back to finish up their business.”
So the boys watched the strange company of sullen, muttering men disappear through the trees. As they were lost to view, the comical side of the adventure struck Shorty and he began to laugh and the longer he laughed, the harder he laughed. The others caught the infection and in a second the woods were ringing with the unrestrained roars of the boys. They laughed until they could laugh no more and then lay on the grass, gasping for breath.
“Oh, they did looksofunny!” said Shorty between gasps. “I never shall forget that sight until my dying day.”
At that minute Bert sat up suddenly, exclaiming, “Fellows, look who’s here!”
With one accord they turned and saw the colliewhich they had entirely forgotten, sitting near and regarding them with inquiring, wistful eyes.
“Come here, Beauty,” Bert called, and the dog came unhesitatingly and stuck his cold, black muzzle in Bert’s hand.
“Did they desert you, old fellow?” Bert asked, putting his arm around the dog’s neck.
The collie waved his beautiful brush and, lifting his soft eyes to Bert’s face saw something there that made him his slave forevermore. For the collie, with true dog instinct, had recognized that in Bert he had a friend.
“I wonder where those tramps got him.” “Probably swiped him.” “Doesn’t look as if he’d had very good treatment.” “He doesn’t and it’s a shame, too. Isn’t he a beauty?” were some of the comments of the boys as they gathered around the dog, patting his head gently. The collie waved his tail and in his eyes was a great longing for sympathy and love. And you may be sure the boys gave him what he asked for.
Tired out, the boys finally went back to camp, followed by their new friend who soon became a favorite with everyone. That night Don, as they called the dog, sat with the rest around the camp fire and answered whenever they spoke to him with a wave of his silver brush. Bert made him a bed on the floor of his tent and Don gladlytook possession of it. Just before he got into bed Bert put his hand on the dog’s head, saying, “I guess we’re going to be good friends aren’t we, old fellow?”
And Don, looking up in his master’s face, with eyes that held a world of gratitude and love, answered to Bert’s entire satisfaction.
The next morning, when the boys drew aside the flaps of their tents, the sky was dark and lowering. A good many anxious glances were thrown at the clouds and open disapproval of the outlook was not slow in breaking out.
“Gee, what a fearful day,” said Jim.
“You bet it is,” chimed in Shorty.
“That’s our luck,” wailed Dave, “just when I wanted to go to town to get a new blade for the jack-knife I broke yesterday.”
“Oh, come off, you pessimists,” sang out Bert, who had just plunged his head in a bucket of cold water and now was rubbing his face until it shone, “somewhere the sun is shining.”
“Heap of good that does us,” grumbled Shorty, “but say,” as he turned to Bert suspiciously, “what sort of thing was that you called us?”
“I said you were pessimists.”
“Well, what does that jawbreaker mean?”
“Why,” said Bert, who could not resist his propensity to tease, “that means that you are not optimists.”
“Worse and worse and more of it,” complained Shorty.
“That’s just as clear as mud,” echoed Jim.
“Well,” said Bert, tantalizingly, “listen my children——”
“‘Listen, my children and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,’”
“‘Listen, my children and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,’”
chanted Frank, who had recited that identical poem in his elocution class at the last term of school.
A well-aimed pillow made him duck, and Bert resumed:
“You see, Shorty, it’s just like this: The optimist is the fellow that sees the doughnut. The pessimist sees only the hole in the doughnut. Now, for my part, there is no nourishment in the hole, but there’s lots of it in the doughnut.”
“Aw say, don’t make a fellow’s mouth water,” said Shorty, before whose practical vision rose up his mother’s kitchen, fragrant with the smell of the crisp, brown, sizzling beauties, as they were lifted from the pan, “and me so far from home.”
If there were no doughnuts at the breakfast to which all hands came running, their place was more than taken by the golden corn bread and the savory bacon that formed the meal to whichthey sat down with all the enthusiasm of hungry boys. The food disappeared as if by magic and the table had been replenished more than once before the boys cried enough. Many a sated millionaire would have willingly exchanged a substantial part of his hoarded wealth for one of those unjaded appetites. But in pure, undiluted satisfaction, the boys would have been the losers by the exchange.
That very thought struck Mr. Hollis as he watched the havoc made at table by these valiant young trenchermen, and, turning to Dick, who sat at his right, he spoke of the starving King Midas. Jim, who overheard the name, which, as he said “was a new one on him,” wanted to know who Midas was, and how, if he were a king, he couldn’t get grub enough to keep him from starving. The boys, who had by this time taken the first keen edge off their appetite, were equally eager to hear the story, and Mr. Hollis went on to tell about the avaricious king of the olden time who could never get enough, but was always asking the gods for more. After a while they became wearied and disgusted and granted his request that everything he touched should turn to gold. The king was delighted at this beyond all measure. Now, at last, he was to have his heart’s desire. He put the gift to the test at once. He touched his sword and itchanged to gold. That was fine. He stroked his beard and every hair became a glistening yellow spike. That wasn’t so fine. He began to get a little worried. Wasn’t this too much of a good thing? Well, anyway there was no use in fretting. He would go to dinner and get his mind off. But when he touched the food, it too became gold. He lifted a goblet of wine, only to find that it held molten metal. In the midst of plenty, he was starving. Upon his knees, he begged the gods to take back their fatal gift, and, thinking he had learned his lesson well, they did so. His gold vanished, but, oh, how delicious was the first taste of food. “And to-day,” concluded Mr. Hollis, “there is many a millionaire whose gold doesn’t give him the pleasure that a square meal gives the ravenous appetite of a healthy boy.”
“Well,” said Tom, expressing the general sentiment, “I’d sure like the money, but, oh, you corn bread.”
After breakfast, the boys broke up into separate groups. One went off under the guidance of Mr. Hollis to gather some fossils that were to be found in great abundance in the limestone that jutted out from a quarry at a little distance from the camp. Another group of the fellows with Dick in charge, who were especially interested in bird and insect life—the “bug squad”as they were commonly and irreverently referred to in camp—went to a little clearing about half a mile away that was especially rich in specimens. The day before, Tom had secured an uncommonly beautiful species of butterfly that topped anything in his experience so far, and the other boys wanted to add one to their rapidly growing collection. Whether the lowering day had anything to do or not with the absence of these fluttering beauties who love the sunshine, their search was without result, and after two hours spent in this way they threw aside their butterfly nets and sat down in the shade of a spreading beech to rest and as Shorty called it “to have a gabfest.”
Almost directly beneath the eastern branches was a large mound nearly three feet above the surrounding level and perhaps twenty feet in circumference. As Shorty flung himself down on the centre of the mound, a curious expression came into the eyes of Dick. He glanced quickly at Frank, who returned his look and added a wink that might have aroused suspicion in Shorty’s mind, had not that guileless youth been lying stretched out at full length with his hat over his eyes. The warmth and general mugginess of the air saturated almost to the raining point, together with the constant activity of the last two hours, had tired him out, and after a littlebadinage growing less and less spirited, he began to doze. The other boys who had been given the tip by Frank and Dick, let the conversation drag on purpose, and with a wicked glint of mischief in their eyes watched the unsuspecting Shorty slip away into the land of sleep. Soon his arms relaxed, his chest rose and fell with his regular breathing and horrors! an undeniable snore told that Shorty was not “faking,” but was off for good.
From being a spot of perfect peace and quiet, the mound suddenly burst into life. From numberless gates a swarm of ants issued forth and rushed about here and there to find out the cause of this invasion. The weight of Shorty’s body and his movements as he composed himself for sleep had aroused them to a sense of danger and they poured out in thousands. Soon the ground was covered with little patches of black and red ants, and as though by common consent they began to surround the unconscious Shorty. Some crept up his legs, others his arms, while others climbed over his collar and slipped inside.
First, an arm twitched violently. Then a sleepy hand stole down and scratched his leg. The boys were bursting with laughter, and Tim grew black in the face as he crowded his handkerchief into his mouth. Shorty shook his headas a horse does when a fly lights on it. Again he twitched and this time seemed to realize that there was something wrong. Still half asleep, he snapped:
“Aw, why don’t you fellows quit your kidding? Stop tickling me with that——”
A yell ended the sentence as a nip more vicious than usual brought Shorty to his feet, this time wide awake beyond all question. He cast one glance at the boys, who now made no pretence of restraint but roared with laughter. Then he saw the swarm of ants surrounding him and took in the situation. He tore his hat from his head, his coat from his shoulders, shook off his tormentors and spinning around like a dancing dervish, dashed off toward the brook. A moment later there was a splash and they heard Shorty blowing, spluttering, diving, rubbing, until finally he had rid himself of the swarms that clung closer to him than a brother.
At last he succeeded and came up the bank. Before resuming his clothes, he had to take each garment separately and search every seam and crease to make sure that not a single ant remained. Then he came back into the group like a raging lion. His temper never was any of the best, and the sudden awakening from sleep, the stings and ticklings of the invaders, and perhaps most of all, the unrestrained laughter of the boyshad filled his cup to the brim. He “saw red,” as the saying is, and regardless of age and size was rushing toward the rest with doubled up fists and rage in his heart, when Dick caught him by the wrists and held him in his strong grasp until his fury had spent itself somewhat and he began to get control of himself.
“Phil,” said Dick—he never called him Shorty, and at this moment that recollection helped to sober the struggling boy—“remember that the first duty of boy or man is to control his temper. The boys didn’t mean any harm. It looked to them like a splendid joke, and perhaps we let it go a little too far. I am really to blame more than any one else because I am older and in charge of the squad. I’m awfully sorry, Phil, and I beg your pardon.”
The kindly tone and sincere apology were not lost on Phil, who was not without a sense of humor, which through all his anger began to struggle to the surface. The other boys, too, thoughtless and impulsive though they might be, were sound and kind at heart, and following Dick’s example crowded about Phil and joined in the apology. The most flaming anger must melt before such expressions of regard and goodwill and Phil was at last compelled to smile sheepishly and say that it was all right.
“You’re a sport, Phil, all right,” called outFrank, and at this highest of commendations from a boy’s point of view, the last vestige of Phil’s resentment faded away.
“Well, anyway, fellows,” he said, “I don’t bear any grudge against you, but I am sure going to get even with those pesky ants. I never did care much for ants anyway. I’ve been told so often to ‘go to the ant, thou sluggard,’ that now I’m going to them for fair, and what I do to them will be a plenty.”
As he said this, he turned toward the ant hill as though to demolish it, but Dick put up a friendly hand:
“No, Phil,” said he, “you wouldn’t destroy a wonderful and beautiful palace, would you?”
“Palace,” said Phil in amazement, thinking for a moment that Dick was “stringing” him. “What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I say,” returned Dick; “a wonderful and beautiful palace. There is a queen there and she walks about every day in state, surrounded by a throng of courtiers. There are princesses there that are taken out daily to get the air, accompanied by a governess, exactly as you have seen a group of boarding-school girls walking out with their teachers. Surrounding the palace is a city where there are hundreds of carpenters and farmers and sentinels and soldiers.If you waited round a while, you would see the farmers going out to milk their cows——”
At that point, Dick was interrupted by a roar of laughter that burst from every boy at once. They had listened in growing amazement that had rapidly become stupefaction, but this was really too much. What was the matter with Dick? Was it a joke, a parable, a fairy story? They might be kids all right, but there was a limit to everything, and when Dick talked of ants going out to milk the cows—well! It was up to him to explain himself or prove his statement, and that they felt sure he could never do.
Dick waited good-naturedly while they pelted him with objections and plied him with questions. Then he took from his kit a strong magnifying glass and told them that he was going to prove to them all what he had said.
“He laughs best who laughs last,” he said, “and I am going to show you that all I said is true. That is,” he modified, “I cannotproveeverything just now, as I would have to destroy this wonderful palace if I were to try to show you how marvelous it is and how perfect in all its appointments. But what we don’t see ourselves has been seen time and time again by hundreds of wise and truthful men, and their testimony is as strong as though it were given under oath in a court of law.”
“Well,” said Frank, “I’m willing to take everything else on faith, but I’m afraid I’d have to see the milking done myself in order to believe it.”
“All right,” said Dick, “as it happens that is just the thing I can show you more easily than anything else.”
The boys crowded eagerly around him.
“You know,” said Dick, as the boys threw themselves down at the side of the mound and looked at it with an entirely new interest, “if these were African ants, you wouldn’t be taking any such liberties with them. Instead of hanging around this mound you would be running away like all possessed. And if you didn’t make tracks in a hurry the only thing left here would be your skeleton picked as clean as the one you saw the other day in old Dr. Sanford’s office.”
“What?” cried Jim, “do you mean to say that I would run away from a little thing like an ant. Not on your life, I wouldn’t.”
“Let’s see,” said Dick, “you’d run away from a boa-constrictor, wouldn’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t,” retorted Jim.
“Well, if you’d run away from the boa-constrictor, and he’d run away from the ants, where doyouget any license to face the ants.”
“Do you mean to say that those monster snakes are afraid of such tiny things?”
“I should say they were,” replied Dick, “theants go from place to place through the great African forest in countless numbers, millions at a time, a regular army of them. Nothing can stand before them. They strip every shrub, eat every blade of grass. They swarm over every living thing they find in their way. Sometimes they come across a snake unawares, and climb all over him. He squirms and twists and rushes away, trying to brush them off, against the bushes. At last he turns and bites frantically, but they never let up. They actually eat him alive, and in less than ten minutes they pass on leaving his bones picked clean as a whistle. The natives take their wives and children and flee for their lives whenever they see an army of ants approaching.”
“But that, of course, has nothing to do with these little American neighbors of ours. They are perfectly harmless and though they are fierce scrappers among themselves, inflict no injury on any one else. And there is nothing in the whole animal or insect world, except perhaps the bees, that have a society and government so much like that of men.”
“In one respect they are like their African brothers and that is in their fondness for travel. Every once in a while they make up their minds to emigrate and then they fly in swarms of millions——”
“What?” interrupted Frank, “do you mean to say they fly? I never knew that an ant had wings.”
“Of course they have,” said Dick, “they often have to cross rivers to get to their new home. How could they do that without wings?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” hummed Shorty:
“The bed bug has no wings at allBut he gets there just the same.”
“The bed bug has no wings at allBut he gets there just the same.”
A rather severe glance from Dick quenched Phil’s exuberant spirits which had all come back to him since his ducking.
“Now,” continued Dick, “these swarms are sometimes so vast that they darken the sun in certain localities. Men working on high buildings have been surrounded and almost blinded by them. While these emigrations last they are a bother, if not a peril, and the only ones that are really happy are the fish in the brooks and rivers over which they pass. Sometimes the surface is fairly black with them and the trout and little troutlings have the time of their lives. Once the flight is ended, however, and the new locality chosen, the wings disappear. Nature has no use for needless things and from that time on the air knows them no more. The carpenter ants get busy right away. The place is marked off as accuratelyas a surveyor marks out a plot in the suburbs of a city. The queen ant is given a royal room apart from all the others. She is a good mother and takes the best of care of her little ones. As they grow older, they in turn help the queen to care for their little brothers and sisters. They are excessively neat and clean in their personal habits. They spend hours preening and combing and cleaning until they are immaculate——”
“Regular dudes,” muttered Jim.
“Well,” said Tom, “that’s something that will never be laid up against you, Jim.”
Jim, who indeed had a hard time keeping up to a high ideal of cleanliness, and whose hair was usually tumbled while his nails too often were draped in mourning, looked a little confused, and while he was thinking up something to hurl back at Tom, Dick went on.
“There is one thing, however, about the ants that I don’t admire. They like to get somebody else to do their work. A certain number of their own colony are ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ for the rest. Indeed, the aristocrats among them get so lazy after a while that they will not even feed themselves. The workers not only have to hustle for the grub, but actually have to feed it to the lords and dukes. And talking of hustling for grub, just look here.”
The boys followed the direction of Dick’s finger, and there coming up a little beaten path they saw a procession of ants dragging along a big fat caterpillar. It had evidently put up a good fight, judging from the numbers that had been necessary to capture it, but they had proved too strong. A little convulsive movement showed that it was not yet quite dead, but it no longer made any resistance. The formic acid that the ants secrete had partly paralyzed it and made defence impossible. There was an almost comical disproportion between its large helpless bulk and the tiny size of its conquerors, but this was a case where numbers counted. The victors all pulled like good fellows and passing through one of the entrances of the mound finally dragged their booty into the inner cave.
“Another thing,” said Dick, when the keenly interested boys had again gathered about him, “the red ants are slaveholders. When their working force has been weakened or diminished, they get a big army together and raid some colony of black ants a few hundred feet or yards distant in order to carry them away as slaves. There is nothing haphazard or slouchy about the way they go about it. Everything is arranged as carefully and precisely as in the case of an American or European power getting ready to go to war. At a given signal the troops come outand get in order of battle. There is perfect order and system everywhere. When there is a very large army, a sort of hum or buzz arises from it almost as though they were beating drums to inspire the soldiers for battle. They march forward in perfect time and dash upon the enemy with irresistible fury. The black ants through their scouts have been told of the enemy’s approach and have made all the preparation they can to beat them off. The infant ants, together with their household goods, have been tucked away in upper galleries where they can see the fight but not be in it.”
“Reserved seats as it were,” murmured Frank.
“The ants have two weapons. One is the nipper, that can cut off their enemy’s head as neatly as a pair of shears. Then they have the formic acid that, used against ants or other insects, has a poisonous quality. With both of these weapons they fight with the greatest desperation until victory declares for one side or the other. The red ants are usually victorious, as they are larger and stronger and more aggressive. In case they win, they carry away all the little ones of their black opponents and bring them up as slaves. They are treated kindly, and after a while seem to grow content and take their place as the humbler members of the community. After the battle is over the wounded ants arecarried home by their companions and the dead are buried in a regular ants’ cemetery.”
The boys had listened with a fascinated interest to these marvelous stories of life going on all around them and to which they had never given more than a passing thought.
“Well,” said Jim, “it sure is the queerest thing I ever heard about. If anyone else but Dick had told me this I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “it certainly sounds like a fairy story.”
“What gets me,” said Shorty, “is that the queen seems to be the most important of the whole bunch. What about the king? It must be a regular suffragette colony.”
“Yes,” replied Dick, “in a certain sense it is. The males of the community don’t amount to much. One by one their privileges are taken away from them. They even lose their wings before the females do. After they have taken their flight and safely escorted the queen to her future home they drop out of sight. Their wings fall off and in some cases are pulled off by the more ill-tempered females of the family. They hang around a little while and then drop out of sight altogether. Nobody seems to care what becomes of them. They can’t even get back to the place from which they started.Their wings are gone and they can’t walk. They remind me of the cat—they are so different—the cat came back—the male ants can’t.”
“Gee,” said Jim, “how do the rest get on without them?”
“Oh,” replied Dick, “they don’t seem to mind the males at all. It takes away some of the conceit of the male sex when they see how easily one can get along without them.”
“Well,” said Shorty, who was never partial to work, “they at least get rid of a lot of trouble. How about the carpenter ants, the soldier ants, the foraging ants? Are they all females?”
“Every one of them,” said Dick. “It is a regular colony of Amazons.”
“It seems to me,” said Shorty, “that in all the bunch the queen is the only one who has a snap.”
“Don’t you believe it,” returned Dick, “as a matter of fact, she is the hardest worker of all, that is, at the start. She is the busiest kind of a mother, brings up all the little ants, washing their faces, combing their hair——”
“Oh, say,” interrupted Shorty, “aren’t you putting it a little bit too strong, Dick?”
“Not at all,” said Dick; “here, take up this ant and look at it through the magnifying glass.”
Under the lens the boys, crowding around,saw that there, sure enough, was a fine silky down resembling very much the hair upon the human head.
“Of course,” said Dick, “as in every other part of the animal or insect world, this only lasts for a little while. Men and women are the only creatures in the whole universe that stick by their children through thick and thin. There is no better mother than a cat, for instance, while the kittens are small and they need her help, but just as soon as they are able to shift for themselves, nothing more doing for Mrs. Cat. Out they go to hustle for their own living, and if some of the slower and lazier ones still hang around, the mother’s claws soon give them a sharp reminder that it is time to be up and doing. The same is true of the birds. See how the mother bird sits brooding over her eggs. With what tender care she watches them while they are still unable to feed themselves. How the father bird scratches from morning to night to find worms to put down those scrawny little beaks. But after a while they, too, go to the edge of the nest, and with many a timid flutter stretch their wings and drop off the edge. And with the laggards, the parental beak is ready to push them off into the new world where they hustle for themselves. It is only a fellow’s father and mother that stand by him to the end. Nomatter how bad he is, how often he wrenches their hearts, how many times he has sinned and been forgiven and sinned again, the mother heart clings to him to the end. I tell you what, boys, you can’t make too much of that father and mother of yours.”
“You bet,” came in a responsive murmur from the boys.
“Now, going back to the queen,” said Dick, “it sure does seem that after the kids have grown up she’d have a dandy time. She is by far the biggest figure in the colony. The worker ants can’t do too much for her. She has the finest room and the choicest food, and yet, after all, I suppose this becomes tiresome. It is just as it is with human queens. So many things are done for them, so much pomp and ceremony surrounds them, that no doubt they often sigh for freedom and would exchange their places with almost any of their subjects. They are something like a little girl that was a rich man’s daughter. Her milk was pasteurized, the water she drank was sterilized, so that after a while her only thought was to grow big enough to do as she chose and the very first thing she was going to do was to eat a germ.”
The boys laughed and Dick resumed.
“It is almost pathetic to see the poor old queen going out for a walk. She moves in a perfectcircle of courtiers. As long as she keeps in the middle she is all right, but the minute she strays to one side or attempts to go further, this surrounding group push her back. Sometimes they thrust their shoulders against her and at other times simply mass themselves in front of her, and even, at times, are undignified enough, if these hints are not sufficient, to take her by one of her antennae and lead her back into the center of the circle, for all the world like a mother taking home a naughty child by the ear. No, you can bet it is not all ‘peaches and cream’ where the queen is concerned.”
“Well,” said Shorty, only partly convinced, “even if the queen has troubles of her own, it must be nice to be the aristocrat. Think of having nothing to do but just hang around and let the carpenter ants build your house and the farmer ants store up the grain and the foraging ants bring in the caterpillars and the soldier ants do the fighting.”
“No,” said Dick, “you are wrong again, Shorty. They do so little and become so dependent upon the work of others that after a while they seem to lose their faculties. They wander around in a crazy and feeble way, trying to kill time, I suppose, and after a while become so lazy and helpless that they can’t even eat without help.”
“Can’t eat!” said Jim, whose appetite was a standing joke in camp; “then no lords and dukes for me.”
“I really think,” resumed Dick, “that just as it is in human life, the workers are the lucky ones after all. There is something doing every minute. Their lives are full of interest. They are too busy to be unhappy. Don’t make any mistake, fellows, work is the salvation of the world. The happiest are the busiest; the drones and sluggards are almost, without exception, the most miserable creatures on the face of the earth. If I were——”
But just at this moment a curious thing happened. The afternoon had worn on while the boys were talking, and so keen was their interest in the wonders that were being brought before their eyes that they had failed to realize how late it was. The ants had been wandering around in an aimless way—that is, it seemed aimless to the boys, but doubtless they knew what they were about and had a definite object, even though the boys couldn’t understand it. But now a sudden stir and bustle seemed to arouse the colony. From numerous gates the throng came forth with almost military order and precision.
“Ah,” said Dick, “here’s just the thing you want to see, boys. It is milking time and the ants are going to herd their cows. Now we willfollow one of these lines and see just how they do it.”
At a few feet distant from the mound there was a little shrub about three feet high, covered with foliage and with widely extended branches. The column of ants reached the foot of this, climbed it, and scattered among the branches.
The boys at a signal from Dick followed him softly, so that the ants might not be disturbed.
“See,” said Dick, gently taking hold of a branch that projected beyond the others, “look through this magnifying glass.”
One by one the boys stole up, each eager for a sight that they had never before seen or dreamed of. On the upper side of the branch which Dick held between his thumb and finger were little groups of parasites, almost too small to be seen by the naked eye. All day long they had been feeding upon the sap that came from a branch until their bodies were swollen with a transparent honey dew. An ant approached one of them, placed its antennae over the throat and extracted a tiny drop of the colorless liquid. Again and again this was repeated. It seemed like rank robbery, but there was no resistance on the part of the herd. They seemed just as glad that milking time had come as do the cows that stand lowing at the bars of the fence and calling for the farmer. Drop after drop of the honeydew was extracted, until finally the aphid, as the little creature is called, grew lank and thin, while the ant became correspondingly large. From time to time the antennae of the ant stroked the tiny hair on the back, just as a farmer would stroke the cow in order to soothe it and keep it perfectly still.
Finally the milking was completed and the farmer ants retraced their way along the branch and down the stem and, falling into line with their comrades similarly laden, resumed their march to the colony. The boys had watched with bated breath and almost awe-struck interest.
“Well,” said Jim, at last breaking the silence, “those ants are surely not going hungry to bed.”
“Gee,” said Shorty, “I bet they will suffer from indigestion.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Dick. “You don’t suppose they keep this all to themselves, do you? Just look here.”
He lifted a stone about eighteen inches from the foot of the mound. Under the magnifying glass they could see a number of tiny apertures that evidently led in the direction of the colony, and on one side an ant waiting for the return of the milking party. As Dick selected one and placed his magnifying glass directly upon the opening, the boys could see one of the ants laden with the honey dew stop and, placing its mouthclose to that of the waiting ant, exude a tiny drop of its burden. Moving the glass around quickly in the arc of a circle, they saw this process repeated until finally the round was finished and the farmer ants, more lightly laden than before, went on toward the main entrance of the colony.
“Those,” said Dick, “are the lords and dukes getting their supper.”
“Well,” said Tom, “after this I am ready to believe anything. I tell you what, Dick, I never learned so much in my life as I have to-day.”
“Yes,” said Shorty, as the boys picked up their kits and prepared to return to camp, “I am glad enough now that I didn’t smash that ant nest when I tried to. After all, they are good sports and I would hate to spoil their fun.”
“Yes,” replied Dick, “you know that one of the most important principles in life is kindness to anything that breathes. Of course there are certain pests that are harmful to human life and we are compelled to kill in self-defense, but for anything that is harmless the one great principle that should govern us always is found in those two lines that Mr. Hollis repeated the other day:
“‘Never to blend our pleasure or our prideWith sorrow to the meanest thing that feels.’”
“‘Never to blend our pleasure or our prideWith sorrow to the meanest thing that feels.’”
“Hello, fellows. Look at this. Well, of all the——”
The boys looked up at Bob’s startled exclamation, and for a moment everything else was forgotten, while they stared with wide-open eyes at the grotesque procession that came into view.
Down the road crawled a little caravan of ten or a dozen ramshackle wagons, drawn by tired-looking horses. At their heads or alongside walked a number of men of various ages, dressed in all sorts of nondescript costumes. Their swarthy faces and dark eyes, together with the large earrings that they wore, gave them a distinctly piratical appearance, and to the boys they looked as though they might have been taken bodily from one of the old romances of the Spanish Main. They might easily have been the blood brothers of the rascals who sang in thundering chorus:
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest,Sing heigho, and a bottle of rum.”
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest,Sing heigho, and a bottle of rum.”
But, alas! there were no murderous pistols thrust in their belts or cutlasses held between their teeth to complete the illusion, and the picturesque crowd resolved itself into a troop of gipsies going into camp.
The place they had pitched upon for their temporary stay was about three miles distant from the boys’ camp and had been chosen with a keen eye to its advantages. Either through a scout sent ahead or simply by that marvelous sixth sense so highly developed in wandering peoples, they had elected to stop at a little ravine through which ran a brook of sparkling water and surrounded by a wood that furnished ample supplies for their campfires. It was fascinating to see the dexterity, born of long experience, with which the camp was pitched. The horses were unhitched in a twinkling and turned out to graze, while the wagons were ranged in a single circle around the camp. Some brown, dirty canvas and a few branches of trees were quickly transformed into tents. Wood was cut, a rough fireplace built, a huge kettle suspended over the flames that crackled merrily beneath, and the women and girls who had descended from the wagons busied themselves in bringing water from the brook and preparing supper for the tired and hungry crew. The men, after the rougher work was done, sprawled around upon the grass, talking in a languageunintelligible to the boys, and occasionally casting an indifferent look at the group in the automobile, who had watched the scene with breathless interest.
“Well,” said Bert at last, as he roused himself with an effort, “they haven’t asked us to stay to supper, and I suppose it isn’t good manners to hang around while they are eating, even if this is a public place. So here goes,” and throwing in the clutch he started the “Red Scout” off toward camp.
The liveliest interest, not unmixed with envy, was shown by the other boys at the recital by the auto squad of the afternoon’s adventure.
“Gee,” said Jim Dawson, “you fellows certainly do have all the luck. If I’d been with you there’d have been nothing more exciting than a rabbit scurrying across the road. To-day I stayed behind and here you fellows have watched the pitching of a gipsy camp.”
“Never mind, Jim,” said Tom, “we’ll all go over soon and take it in. I suppose they’ll be there for some time.”
“There’s no telling,” remarked Dick. “Sometimes they stay in one place for two or three weeks, until the call of the road becomes so strong that they can’t resist it. Then again, after a day or two, they