"There!" said the smallest Clouded Grasshopper to them, "we won't doanything to you this time, because you are young and don't know verymuch, but don't you ever bother one of us again. We might have hoppedright on to you, and then what could you have done to help yourselves?"
The Clouded Grasshoppers started off to find their way back to themeadow, and the frightened Kittens looked at each other and whispered:"Just supposing they had hopped on to us! What _could_ we have done!"
THE EARTHWORM HALF-BROTHERS
Early one wet morning, a long Earthworm came out of his burrow. He didnot really leave it, but he dragged most of his body out, and let justthe tip-end of it stay in the earth. Not having any eyes, he could notsee the heavy, gray clouds that filled the sky, nor the milkweed stalks,so heavy with rain-drops that they drooped their pink heads. He couldnot see these things, but he could feel the soft, damp grass, and thecool, clear air, and as for seeing, why, Earthworms never do have eyes,and never think of wanting them, any more than you would want six legs,or feelers on your head.
This Earthworm had been out of his burrow only a little while, whenthere was a flutter and a rush, and Something flew down from the sky andbit his poor body in two. Oh, how it hurt! Both halves of him wriggledand twisted with pain, and there is no telling what might have become ofthem if another and bigger Something had not come rushing down to drivethe first Something away. So there the poor Earthworm lay, in twoaching, wriggling pieces, and although it had been easy enough to bitehim in two, nothing in the world could ever bite him into one.
After a while the aching stopped, and he had time to think. It was veryhard to decide what he ought to do. You can see just how puzzling itmust have been, for, if you should suddenly find yourself two peopleinstead of one, you would not know which one was which. At this veryminute, who should come along but the Cicada, and one of the Earthwormpieces asked his advice. The Cicada thought that he was the very personto advise in such a case, because he had had such a puzzling timehimself. So he said in a very knowing way: "Pooh! That is a simplematter. I thought I was two Cicadas once, but I wasn't. The thinking,moving part is the real one, whatever happens, so that part of the Wormwhich thinks and moves is the real Worm."
"I am the thinking part," cried each of the pieces.
The Cicada rubbed his head with his front legs, he was so surprised.
"And I am the moving part," cried each of the pieces, giving a littlewriggle to prove it.
"Well, well, well, well!" exclaimed the Cicada, "I believe I don't knowhow to settle this. I will call the Garter Snake," and he flew off toget him.
A very queer couple they made, the Garter Snake and the Cicada, as theycame hurrying back from the Snake's home. The Garter Snake was quiteexcited. "Such a thing has not happened in our meadow for a long time,"he said, "and it is a good thing there is somebody here to explain it toyou, or you would be dreadfully frightened. My family is related to theWorms, and I know. Both of you pieces are Worms now. The bitten endswill soon be well, and you can keep house side by side, if you don'twant to live together."
"Well," said the Earthworms, "if we are no longer the same Worm, but twoWorms, are we related to each other? Are we brothers, or what?"
"Why," answered the Garter Snake, with a funny little smile, "I thinkyou might call yourselves half-brothers." And to this day they are knownas "the Earthworm half-brothers." They are very fond of each other andare always seen together.
A jolly young Grasshopper, who is a great eater and thinks rather toomuch about food, said he wouldn't mind being bitten into twoGrasshoppers, if it would give him two stomachs and let him eat twice asmuch.
The Cicada told the Garter Snake this one day, and the Garter Snakesaid: "Tell him not to try it. The Earthworms are the only meadow peoplewho can live after being bitten in two that way. The rest of us have tobe one, or nothing. And as for having two stomachs, he is just as welloff with one, for if he had two, he would get twice as hungry."
A GOSSIPING FLY
Of all the people who lived and worked in the meadow by the river, therewas not one who gave so much thought to other people's business as acertain Blue-bottle Fly. Why this should be so, nobody could say;perhaps it was because he had nothing to do but eat and sleep, for thatis often the way with those who do little work.
Truly his cares were light. To be sure, he ate much, but then, withnearly sixty teeth for nibbling and a wonderful long tongue for sucking,he could eat a great deal in a very short time. And as forsleeping--well, sleeping was as easy for him as for anyone else.
However it was, he saw nearly everything that happened, and thought itover in his queer little three-cornered head until he was sure that heought to go to talk about it with somebody else. It was no wonder thathe saw so much, for he had a great bunch of eyes on each side of hishead, and three bright, shining ones on the very top of it. That let himsee almost everything at once, and beside this his neck was soexceedingly slender that he could turn his head very far around.
This particular Fly, like all other Flies, was very fond of the sunshineand kept closely at home in dark or wet weather. He had no house, butstayed in a certain elder bush on cloudy days and called that his home.He had spent all of one stormy day there, hanging on the under side of aleaf, with nothing to do but think. Of course, his head was down and hisfeet were up, but Blue-bottle Flies think in that position as well asin any other, and the two sticky pads on each side of his six feet heldhim there very comfortably.
He thought so much that day, that when the next morning dawned sunshinyand clear, he had any number of things to tell people, and he startedout at once.
First he went to the Tree Frog. "What do you suppose," said he, "thatthe Garter Snake is saying about you? It is very absurd, yet I feel thatyou ought to know. He says that your tongue is fastened at the wrongend, and that the tip of it points down your throat. Of course, I knewit couldn't be true, still I thought I would tell you what he said, andthen you could see him and put a stop to it."
For an answer to this the Tree Frog ran out his tongue, and, sureenough, it was fastened at the front end. "The Snake is quite right," hesaid pleasantly, "and my tongue suits me perfectly. It is just what Ineed for the kind of food I eat, and the best of all is that it nevermakes mischief between friends."
After that, the Fly could say nothing more there, so he flew away in hisnoisiest manner to find the Grasshopper who lost the race. "It was ashame," said the Fly to him, "that the judges did not give the race toyou. The idea of that little green Measuring Worm coming in here, almosta stranger, and making so much trouble! I would have him driven out ofthe meadow, if I were you."
"Oh, that is all right," answered the Grasshopper, who was really a goodfellow at heart; "I was very foolish about that race for a time, but theMeasuring Worm and I are firm friends now. Are we not?" And he turned toa leaf just back of him, and there, peeping around the edge, was theMeasuring Worm himself.
The Blue-bottle Fly left in a hurry, for where people were sogood-natured he could do nothing at all. He went this time to theCrickets, whom he found all together by the fat, old Cricket's hole.
"I came," he said, "to find out if it were true, as the meadow peoplesay, that you were all dreadfully frightened when the Cow came?"
The Crickets answered never a word, but they looked at each other andbegan asking him questions.
"Is it true," said one, "that you do nothing but eat and sleep?"
"Is it true," said another, "that your eyes are used most of the timefor seeing other people's faults?"
"And is it true," said another, "that with all the fuss you make, you dolittle but mischief?"
The Blue-bottle Fly answered nothing, but started at once for his homein the elder bush, and they say that his three-cornered head was filledwith very different thoughts from any that had been there before.
THE FROG-HOPPERS GO OUT INTO THE WORLD.
Along the upper edge of the meadow and in the corners of the rail fencethere grew golden-rod. D
uring the spring and early summer you couldhardly tell that it was there, unless you walked close to it and saw theslender and graceful stalks pushing upward through the tall grass andpointing in many different ways with their dainty leaves. The Horses andCows knew it, and although they might eat all around it they neverpulled at it with their lips or ate it. In the autumn, each stalk wascrowned with sprays of tiny bright yellow blossoms, which nodded in thewind and scattered their golden pollen all around. Then it sometimeshappened that people who were driving past would stop, climb over thefence, and pluck some of it to carry away. Even then there was so muchleft that one could hardly miss the stalks that were gone.
It may have been because the golden-rod was such a safe home that mostof the Frog-Hoppers laid their eggs there. Some laid eggs in otherplants and bushes, but most of them chose the golden-rod. After they hadlaid their eggs they wandered around on the grass, the bushes, and thefew trees which grew in the meadow, hopping from one place to anotherand eating a little here and a little there.
Nobody knows why they should have been called Frog-Hoppers, unless itwas because when you look them in the face they seem a very little liketiny Frogs. To be sure, they have six legs, and teeth on the front pair,as no real Frog ever thought of having. Perhaps it was only a nicknamebecause their own name was so long and hard to speak.
The golden-rod was beginning to show small yellow-green buds on the tipsof its stalks, and the little Frog-Hoppers were now old enough to talkand wonder about the great world. On one stalk four Frog-Hopper brothersand sisters lived close together. That was much pleasanter than havingto grow up all alone, as most young Frog-Hoppers do, never seeing theirfathers and mothers or knowing whether they ever would.
These four little Frog-Hoppers did not know how lucky they were, andthat, you know, happens very often when people have not seen otherslonely or unhappy. They supposed that every Frog-Hopper family had twobrothers and two sisters living together on a golden-rod stalk. They fedon the juice or sap of the golden-rod, pumping it out of the stalk withtheir stout little beaks and eating or drinking it. After they had eatenit, they made white foam out of it, and this foam was all around them onthe stalk. Any one passing by could tell at once by the foam just wherethe Frog-Hoppers lived.
One morning the oldest Frog-Hopper brother thought that the sap pumpedvery hard. It may be that it did pump hard, and it may be that he wastired or lazy. Anyway, he began to grumble and find fault. "This is theworst stalk of golden-rod I ever saw in my life," he said. "It doesn'tpay to try to pump any more sap, and I just won't try, so there!"
He was quite right in saying that it was the worst stalk he had everseen, because he had never seen any other, but he was much mistaken insaying that it didn't pay to pump sap, and as for saying that "it didn'tpay, so there!" we all know that when insects begin to talk in that waythe best thing to do is to leave them quite alone until they arebetter-natured.
The other Frog-Hopper children couldn't leave him alone, because theyhadn't changed their skins for the last time. They had to stay in theirfoam until that was done. After the big brother spoke in this way, theyall began to wonder if the sap didn't pump hard. Before long the bigsister wiggled impatiently and said, "My beak is dreadfully tired."
Then they all stopped eating and began to talk. They called their homestuffy, and said there wasn't room to turn around in it without hittingthe foam. They didn't say why they should mind hitting the foam. It wassoft and clean, and always opened up a way when they pushed against it.
"I tell you what!" said the big brother, "after I've changed my skinonce more and gone out into the great world, you won't catch me hangingaround this old golden-rod."
"Nor me!" "Nor me!" "Nor me!" said the other young Frog-Hoppers.
"I wonder what the world is like," said the little sister. "Is it justbigger foam and bigger golden-rod and more Frog-Hoppers?"
"Huh!" exclaimed her big brother. "What lots you know! If I didn't knowany more than that about it, I'd keep still and not tell anybody." Thatmade her feel badly, and she didn't speak again for a long time.
Then the little brother spoke. "I didn't know you had ever been out intothe world," he said.
"No," said the big brother, "I suppose you didn't. There are lots ofthings you don't know." That made him feel badly, and he went off intothe farthest corner of the foam and stuck his head in between agolden-rod leaf and the stalk. You see the big brother was very cross.Indeed, he was exceedingly cross.
For a long time nobody spoke, and then the big sister said, "I wish youwould tell us what the world is like."
The big brother knew no more about the world than the other children,but after he had been cross and put on airs he didn't like to tell thetruth. He might have known that he would be found out, yet he held uphis head and answered: "I don't suppose that I can tell you so that youwill understand, because you have never seen it. There are lots ofthings there--whole lots of them--and it is very big. Some of the thingsare like golden-rod and some of them are not. Some of them are not evenlike foam. And there are a great many people there. They all have sixlegs, but they are not so clever as we are. We shall have to tell themthings."
This was very interesting and made the little sister forget to pout andthe little brother come out of his foam-corner. He even looked asthough he might ask a few questions, so the big brother added, "Nowdon't talk to me, for I must think about something."
It was not long after this that the young Frog-Hoppers changed theirskins for the last time. The outside part of the foam hardened and madea little roof over them while they did this. Then they were ready to goout into the meadow. The big brother felt rather uncomfortable, and itwas not his new skin which made him so. It was remembering what he hadsaid about the world outside.
When they had left their foam and their golden-rod, they had much to seeand ask about. Every little while one of the smaller Frog-Hoppers wouldexclaim, "Why, you never told us about this!" or, "Why didn't you tellus about that?"
Then the big brother would answer: "Yes, I did. That is one of thethings which I said were not like either golden-rod or foam."
For a while they met only Crickets, Ants, Grasshoppers, and othersix-legged people, and although they looked at each other they did nothave much to say. At last they hopped near to the Tree Frog, who wassitting by the mossy trunk of a beech tree and looked so much like thebark that they did not notice him at first. The big brother was verynear the Tree Frog's head.
"Oh, see!" cried the others. "There is somebody with only four legs, andhe doesn't look as though he ever had any more. Why, Brother, what doesthis mean? You said everybody had six."
At this moment the Tree Frog opened his eyes a little and his mouth agreat deal, and shot out his quick tongue. When he shut his mouth again,the big brother of the Frog-Hoppers was nowhere to be seen. They neverhad a chance to ask him that question again. If they had but known it,the Tree Frog at that minute had ten legs, for six and four are ten. Butthen, they couldn't know it, for six were on the inside.
THE MOSQUITO TRIES TO TEACH HIS NEIGHBORS
In this meadow, as in every other meadow since the world began, therewere some people who were always tired of the way things were, andthought that, if the world were only different, they would be perfectlyhappy. One of these discontented ones was a certain Mosquito, a fellowwith a whining voice and disagreeable manners. He had very littlepatience with people who were not like him, and thought that the worldwould be a much pleasanter place if all the insects had been madeMosquitoes.
"What is the use of Spiders, and Dragon-flies, and Beetles, andButterflies?" he would say, fretfully; "a Mosquito is worth more thanany of them."
You can just see how unreasonable he was. Of course, Mosquitoes andFlies do help keep the air pure and sweet, but that is no reason whythey should set themselves up above the other insects. Do not the Beescarry pollen from one flower to another, and so help the plants raisetheir Seed Babies? And who would not miss the bright, happy Butterflies,with th
eir work of making the world beautiful?
But this Mosquito never thought of those things, and he said to himself:"Well, if they cannot all be Mosquitoes, they can at least try to livelike them, and I think I will call them together and talk it over." Sohe sent word all around, and his friends and neighbors gathered to hearwhat he had to say.
"In the first place," he remarked, "it is unfortunate that you are notMosquitoes, but, since you are not, one must make the best of it. Thereare some things, however, which you might learn from us fortunatecreatures who are. For instance, notice the excellent habit of theMosquitoes in the matter of laying eggs. Three or four hundred of theeggs are fastened together and left floating on a pond in such a waythat, when the babies break their shells, they go head first into thewater. Then they----"
"Do you think I would do that if I could?" interrupted a motherly oldGrasshopper. "Fix it so my children would drown the minute they came outof the egg? No, indeed!" and she hurried angrily away, followed byseveral other loving mothers.
"But they don't drown," exclaimed the Mosquito, in surprise.
"They don't if they're Mosquitoes," replied the Ant, "but I am thankfulto say my children are land babies and not water babies."
"Well, I won't say anything more about that, but I must speak of yourvoices, which are certainly too heavy and loud to be pleasant. I shouldthink you might speak and sing more softly, even if you have no pocketsunder your wings like mine. I flutter my wings, and the air strikesthese pockets and makes my sweet voice."
Among the Meadow People Page 7
