THE HELPFUL TUMBLE-BUGS
In the corner of the barnyard was a pile of manure which was to be putupon the garden and plowed in. This would make the ground better forall the good things growing in it, but now it was waiting behind thehigh board fence, and many happy insects lived in it. There were bigBugs and little Bugs, fat Bugs and slim Bugs, young Bugs and old Bugs,good Bugs and--well, one does not like to say that there were badBugs, but there were certainly some not so good as others.
Among all these, however, there were none who worked harder or thoughtmore of each other than the Tumble-bugs. One couple, especially, werethrifty and devoted. They had been married in June, when each wasjust one day old. June weddings were the fashion among their people.
Mr. Tumble-bug believed in early marriages. "I have knownTumble-bugs," he said, "who did not marry until they were two daysold, but I think that a great mistake. Each becomes so used to havinghis own way that it is very hard for husband and wife to agree onanything. Now Mrs. Tumble-bug and I always think alike." Then hesmiled at Mrs. Tumble-bug and Mrs. Tumble-bug smiled at him. They werenearly always together and busy. Perhaps it was because they workedtogether every day that they cared so much for each other. You knowthat makes a great difference, and if one had worked all the timewhile the other was playing, they would soon have come to care forother things and people.
One hot summer morning, Mrs. Tumble-bug said to her husband, who wasjust finishing his breakfast, "I have found the loveliest place youever saw for burying an egg-ball. Do hurry up! I can hardly wait tobegin work."
Mr. Tumble-bug gulped down his last mouthful and answered, "I'm readynow."
"Follow me then," she cried, and led the way over all sorts of littlethings which littered up the ground of the barnyard. No Horse wasthere just then, and she felt safe. Mr. Tumble-bug followed closebehind her, and a very neat-looking couple they made. Both wereflat-backed and all of shining black. "We do not dress so showily assome Bugs," they were in the habit of saying, "but black always lookswell." And that was true. Although they spent most of their daysworking in the earth, they were ever clean and shining, with smiling,shovel-shaped faces.
"There!" said Mrs. Tumble-bug, as she stopped for breath and pointedwith her right fore-leg to the ground just ahead of her. "Did you eversee a finer place?" She could point in this way, you know, withoutfalling over, because she had five other legs on which to stand. Thereare some very pleasant things about having six legs, and the onlytumbling she and her husband did was part of their work.
"Excellent!" exclaimed Mr. Tumble-bug. "And the ground is so soft thatit will not tire you very much to dig in it." He did not have to thinkwhether it would tire him, because he never helped in that part of thework. His wife always liked to do that alone.
Then both Tumble-bugs scurried back to the manure heap. "I cannot seewhy some of our neighbors are so foolish," said she. "There is aBeetle now, laying her eggs right in this pile. She will leave themthere, too, and as likely as not some hungry fellow will come alongbefore the sun goes down and eat every one of them. She might muchbetter take a little trouble, put her egg in a mass of food, and rollit away to a safe place for burial. When my children hatch out intosoft little Grubs, I intend they shall have a chance to grow up safelyand comfortably. Such Beetles do not deserve to have children."
"Well, they won't have many," said her husband. "Perhaps only apitiful little family of twenty or thirty."
"Now," exclaimed Mrs. Tumble-bug, "We must get to work. Help me rollthis ball of manure. I have laid an egg in it while we were talking,so that time was not wasted."
Together they rolled a ball which was bigger than both of them when itstarted, and grew larger and larger as they got it away from the heapand the dust of the ground stuck to it and crusted it over.
Mrs. Tumble-bug stood on top of the ball, and, creeping far out on it,pulled it forward with her hind feet, while he stood on his headbehind it and pushed with his hind legs. Of course if Mrs. Tumble-bughad not been climbing backward all the time, the ball would haverolled right over her. To pull forward with part of your legs andclimb backward with all of them at the same time, and that when yourhead is a good deal lower than your heels, is pretty hard work andtakes much planning. Mrs. Tumble-bug had very little breath fortalking, but she did not lose her temper. And that shows what anexcellent Bug she was. "Harder!" she would call out to Mr. Tumble-bug."We are coming to a little hill."
Then Mr. Tumble-bug, who, you will remember, had to stand on his headall the time, and really did the hardest part of the work, wouldbrace himself more firmly and push until it seemed as though his legswould break. He could never see just where they were going unless helet go of the ball, and Mrs. Tumble-bug did not believe in turning outfor anything.
"What if there is a hill?" she often said. "Can't we go over it?" Andover it they always went, although they might much more easily havegone around it. Mrs. Tumble-bug did not want anybody to think herafraid of work, and she knew her husband would have a chance to restwhile she was burying the ball. Once in a while, when the ball camedown suddenly on the farther side of a twig or chip, it rolled quiteon top of her, and Mr. Tumble-bug would be greatly alarmed. Somepeople thought this served her quite right for insisting that theyshould go over things instead of around them. Still, one hardly likesto say a thing like that.
If it were much of a hill, she would climb down from the ball and talkwith him. Then they would put their shovel-shaped heads together underthe back side of the ball, and, pushing at the same time, send itover. "Two heads are better than one," they would say, "and this needsa great deal of head-work."
At last the ball had reached the spot where they intended to have itburied. Both were hot and tired. "Many legs make light work," saidMrs. Tumble-bug, as she carefully cleaned hers before eating dinner,"and if there is anything I enjoy, it is finishing a good job likethis!"
Mr. Tumble-bug sighed heavily and said he thought he would go for awalk with some of his friends that afternoon. "All work and no playwould make me a dull Bug," said he. Then he called out "Good-by" tohis wife, and told her not to work too hard.
Mrs. Tumble-bug looked after him lovingly. "Now, isn't he good?" shesaid to herself. "There are not many Bugs who will help their wives atall, and most of them never look at an egg, much less see to gettingit well placed." And that is true, for the Tumble-bugs are the modelBug fathers.
Now, indeed, Mrs. Tumble-bug was at her best. She hurried down herdinner, taking mouthfuls which were much too large for good manners,and began plowing the earth around the ball as it lay there. Sheplowed so deep that sometimes she was almost buried in the looseearth. At last she came up, took a good look around, knocked somegrains of dust off her shining back, then dived in again upside down,and pulled the ball in after her by holding it tightly with her middlelegs. All the time she was kicking the earth away with her two hindlegs and her two front ones, which were stout diggers, so that littleby little she sank deeper into the ground.
She made a much larger hole for the ball than it really needed. "Imight just as well, while I am about it," she said. "And I should sodislike to have any one think me afraid of work."
At last she finished and crawled away, covering the place neatly over,so that nobody could see where she went in or out. "There!" she said."Now I am ready to play."
A stray Chicken came along and she hurried under a chip to be safe.The Chicken was lost and calling to his mother. "Mother!" he cried."Mother Hen, I want to get home and go to sleep under your wings."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Tumble-bug. "Is it time for Chickens to goto sleep?" She looked through a crack in the fence and across the lawnto the big house. The shadows lay long upon the short grass. "Itcertainly is," she said. "And here I have spent all day burying thategg properly. I think it very strange that I cannot get more time forrest and play." So she had to eat her supper and go straight to bed toget rested for the next day's work.
Mrs. Tumble-bug did not understand then, and perhaps never
will learn,that if she would stop doing things in the hardest way and begin doingthem in the easiest way, she might get a great deal of work done in aday and still have time to rest. If one were to tell her so, she mightthink that meant laziness, but it would not, you know. It is alwaysworth while to make one's head save one's feet, and when a single headcould save six feet it would certainly be worth while. Still, althoughMrs. Tumble-bug never dreamed of such a thing, she probably enjoyedwork about as much as her neighbors enjoyed play.
Dooryard Stories Page 12
