“And now,” he said, “while we are waiting, we will have a tune from the orchestra.”
Four treetoads, and a dozen or so katydids, crickets and other insects which Freddy didn’t recognize, came forward. They took places in front of the megaphone and the largest katydid waved his feelers and they started to play, trilling and chirping and rattling for all they were worth.
“Well, this may be all right,” said Freddy, “but it doesn’t sound like music to me. Modern stuff, I suppose?”
“No,” said Randolph, “it’s because you don’t hear it as we do. It sounds pretty loud down in the audience. Here, put your ear to the small end of this megaphone.”
So Freddy did. The sounds came through much louder to him, and he did think that he could distinguish a sort of tune.
“Well, it’s queer all right, and they keep good time,” he said, “but it isn’t anything I’d pick out to listen to. And say, what is this great message of Webb’s anyway, Randolph?”
“Stick around,” said the beetle; “you’ll hear it.” He looked around. “Getting pretty dark; I guess we’d better put on the lights.” And he shouted: “Lights!”
Immediately several hundred fireflies, who had been stationed on the tops of the tall grasses that surrounded the open space, turned on their lights. Others on the ground in front of the musicians acted as footlights.
“Here come the Webbs now,” said Randolph, looking up to where a huge Luna moth was circling above them. “He thought it would be more dramatic to arrive by plane.”
The moth dropped down and lit on the low branch of a small tree that stood beside the garden, and the two spiders spun themselves swiftly down on strands of web. Mrs. Webb swung across and landed on Freddy’s ear.
“Splendid of you to make this megaphone, Freddy,” she said. “I knew I could count on you if you got back. We were going to try to use a morning glory blossom, and I had one all picked out, but I forgot that the miserable things close up at night. I doubt if it would have been big enough anyway. I’ll sit with you while father is talking. You’ll stay, won’t you? He wants to talk to you afterward.”
Freddy said he would. The orchestra had stopped and there was much excited applause—which didn’t sound much different to Freddy than the music. Then Mr. Webb took his place inside the megaphone, at the narrow end.
“It is a great pleasure to me,” he said, “to see so many familiar faces here tonight, and an even greater one to see so many unfamiliar faces. Although the high quality of the entertainment provided would no doubt have brought many of you here, I am sure that the appeal to your patriotism is the real reason for this huge audience.
“Now my friends, I am not much of a speaker. Let’s get the serious part of our program over, and we can devote the rest of the evening to pleasure. As you know, our country is now engaged in a great war. We of the insect world cannot fight. We cannot buy bonds. But there is one thing we can do. Let me explain very briefly.
“One of the most important weapons in this war is food. Our farmers are working night and day to produce food to feed not only our own soldiers and the people at home, but to help feed our allies. They have to raise bigger crops than ever before. And there are fewer of them, because so many have gone into the army. In order to increase the crops, the President has asked everyone who can to plant a Victory Garden. This garden on the edge of which we meet tonight, is Mr. Bean’s Victory Garden.
“I see here tonight representatives from every walk of insect life. I am glad of that, for you can all help. Some, of course, more than others. I refer to the potato bugs, squash bugs, cabbage worms, cut worms, leaf hoppers, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and others whose main diet is garden vegetables. Now in ordinary times Mr. Bean does not grudge you what little you eat. It’s only when there are too many of you and you begin to destroy his whole crop that he tries to drive you away. But this year I don’t think that you should destroy any of the crop. Mr. Bean is rationed in what he eats, and if you are patriotic bugs, you won’t object to being rationed too. And I believe that you are patriotic bugs. And so I am going to ask you to agree not to eat any vegetables at all this year. I’m going to ask you—” He stopped, as a potato bug in the front row jumped up and began waving his forelegs excitedly. “Yes, what is it?”
“It’s all very well to ask us to be patriotic,” shouted the potato bug, “but what do you want us to do—starve? You’re a spider; you don’t like vegetables anyway. Besides, us potato bugs don’t eat the potatoes; we only eat the leaves and vines.”
“When you eat the vines, the potatoes don’t grow,” said Mr. Webb. “But nobody’s asking you to starve. There are plenty of other things you eat that aren’t vegetables. There’s nightshade vines, for instance. I know you potato bugs like nightshade, for I’ve seen you eating it. And there’s enough up there in the woods to feed a million of you all summer. There are hundreds of seeds and wild plants in the fields and alongside the roads—something for every taste. There’s milkweed, now. Most caterpillars like it. Maybe it isn’t quite as tasty as garden vegetables, but I’m sure for the duration you’ll all be willing to go without some of the things you like for your country’s sake. How about it, bugs? Let’s have a show of hands. How many are willing to give up something to help win the war?”
Freddy had never thought of bugs as being specially patriotic, and he was surprised when the entire audience suddenly burst into wild and frantic cheering. Of course some of them couldn’t cheer, but they waved feelers and forelegs and the caterpillars reared up and swayed back and forth, and even the little flea beetles hopped up and down like tiny rubber balls.
“Thank you, my friends; thank you,” shouted Mr. Webb. “I was sure I could count on you. Now I have only one more thing to say. I would like to have some volunteers who would be willing to go out to other farms in the county and organize other groups like this one. I expect to hold a number of meetings myself—indeed, I have already held a good many—but I can’t do it all alone, and moreover, an appeal to give up vegetables would come better from someone who is himself making a sacrifice, than from me, who as our friend the potato bug has remarked, do not eat vegetables. I will arrange transportation, of course, and all other details. Some time, therefore, during the dance which immediately follows, please speak to either Mrs. Webb or me about it.” He nodded to the orchestra leader, who at once led his musicians into a gay dance tune. And in less than a minute, every bug in the audience who could hop, skip or crawl, had chosen a partner and was dancing like mad.
Chapter 10
Randolph was one of the first dancers on the floor. He led his mother out and they started a sort of slow prance. At every third step his mother got her legs mixed up and fell down, and had to be righted and started off again. But she stuck to it gamely, and as they were rather heavier than most of the other dancers, they soon had a clear space to themselves.
Freddy was very much interested in the different styles of dancing. The caterpillars faced each other with their noses almost touching, then they would take three steps in one direction, then three steps back, then three to one side and three back. Then they would rear up and bow to each other. It was quite majestic.
The crickets danced in a much less dignified way, whirling and kicking up their feet, and occasionally shifting to a position side by side, when they would give a run and then a high leap, which frequently carried them right over the heads of the other dancers into the darkness beyond the floor. Perhaps the most graceful of them all was a pair of grasshoppers, who danced a sort of tango, with many glides and long steps, and quick turns. Although the floor was pretty crowded, it didn’t bother them any, for if other bugs got in their way they just stepped over them.
Freddy, who like many rather fat people, was an excellent dancer himself, was thoroughly enjoying himself and was getting a lot of ideas for new steps, when suddenly a loud crowing voice above him called out: “Ladies and gentlemen. Friends and fellow bugs!” and he looked up to see Charles,
the rooster, perched on the low branch above him.
The orchestra stopped, and all the bugs looked up—some of them rather fearfully, for roosters occasionally like to vary their diet of grain with a nice fat bug, and there were many present who had lost friends and even close relatives gobbled up in this heartless way.
“Friends and fellow bugs!” said Charles again.
“Oh, go away, Charles!” said Freddy. “Why do you have to butt in and break up the party? You’re nobody’s fellow bug! Go on home, like a good fellow.”
“Oh, shut up!” said Charles crossly. “You know I always speak at meetings. I just heard about this one, and I hurried right up here.” And he puffed out his chest and began:
“Friends and fellow bugs! It is a great pleasure for me to address such a distinguished gathering this evening. Particularly as I am sure there are few among you who have ever before had the privilege of hearing me speak. Correct me if I am wrong—”
“You’re wrong, all right,” grumbled Freddy. “Privilege indeed! It’s torture!”
But Charles paid no attention. “However, let that pass. Our able, if somewhat prosy friend, Mr. Webb, has outlined for you his plan for helping the war effort. It is a good plan, a carefully thought out plan, a plan which has my heartfelt approval. Yet I believe there is more, much more, to be said.”
“If there is, you’ll say it, all right,” said Freddy.
“My friends,” Charles continued, “you are the small people of the world, the humble people. You take no part in great events …”
Mr. Webb had hurried over to the nearest firefly and was deep in conversation with him.
“What, you wonder,” said Charles, “has the war to do with you? What effect can your tiny efforts have on the march of events? You cannot fight, you cannot drive the invader from your shores—”
“There isn’t any invader on your shores,” said Freddy.
“As our learned friend observes,” said Charles, giving the pig a dirty look, “there is, at the moment, no invader. But if there were, what—what—” He paused, and blinked his eyes, for a dozen or so fireflies had come up and were flying in a circle around his head with their lights on. He took a deep breath. “Yet let me say this, my friends,” he went on determinedly, “and I say it in all seriousness. On your shoulders rests a great—nay, a well-nigh overwhelming responsibility. And so I counsel you: put your shoulder to the wheel, put your hand to the plough, put your ear to the ground, put your—put your—put your—” He began to repeat like a phonograph whose needle has got stuck, and as the fireflies circled faster his eyes, and then his head, went from side to side, as if he were watching a tennis match. Each time as they went by his head went farther around, as if he couldn’t help trying to keep his eyes on them. “Put your—put your—” he muttered desperately. And then at last his head went nearly all the way around and with a squawk he fell right out of the tree.
… with a squawk he fell out of the tree.
Charles picked himself up, but he was so dizzy that he immediately fell down again. Freddy helped him to his feet. “Darn bugs!” said the rooster. “That’s a fine way to treat me. Me, that’s the best speaker this side of Albany! Me, who’s responsible for what little patriotism there is on this farm.”
“Rubbish!” said Freddy. “You’d have been responsible for putting ’em all to sleep if you’d gone on a little longer.”
Charles leaned heavily on the pig. “Is that so?” he said angrily. “That’s a fine way to talk to one of the most useful people on this farm.”
“You’re useful all right. You crow in the morning and wake us up, and you make a speech in the evening and put us to sleep. That’s fair enough.”
Charles shook himself free. “Aw shut up,” he said, and staggered off home.
The dance had resumed, and Freddy lay down and watched again. Between the dances, the fireflies gave the fireworks display. They imitated rockets and Roman candles, and a lot of them took their places on a web in the form of an American eagle that the spiders had spun on the tree trunk. The applause for this was almost frenzied.
Freddy saw the Webbs bouncing around together in the middle of the floor, and as he watched, a cricket cut in and whirled Mrs. Webb rapidly away from her husband. Mr. Webb came back to talk to Freddy.
“Nice party, isn’t it?” he said. “But I’ll tell you, Freddy; things aren’t as smooth as they look. You remember that fresh horsefly, Zero? Well, he’s back. He’s been away to some school or something, I don’t know—but anyway, he’s learned to spin webs. Just like spider webs, they are. Don’t ask me how he does it!
“Well, for a while we didn’t mind much, though he gave us a lot of trouble. Mrs. Bean is proud of being a good housekeeper, and so when we’re in the house we just spin a small web, out of sight somewhere. But this Zero, he got in and spun webs all over the picture frames and on the dishes on the shelves, and one night he even spun one on Mr. Bean’s whiskers when he was asleep. Of course the Beans blamed us for it, and Mrs. Bean swept all the webs down, including ours. I don’t think Zero meant any special harm by it; it’s just his idea of a joke. But mother gave him a good talking to. And I guess that made him mad, for ever since we moved out in the cow barn for the summer, he’s been making a nuisance of himself. He gets in our webs and tears ’em to pieces, and spins his own webs where they’ll bother the animals—over their food dishes and on their faces when they’re asleep. And of course they think we do it.
“But the worst is, that just since we started this campaign to get the bugs to stop eating vegetables, he’s done everything he can to break it up. He tore down our sign, and we had to weave it over again. And he goes around talking, telling everybody we’re crazy, and the little they eat won’t amount to anything. He’s just plain unpatriotic, Freddy.”
“Can’t you get the wasps after him, as we did before?”
“Jacob went after him one day,” said Mr. Webb. “But Zero has got a lot of webs around in out-of-the-way corners, and he’d dodge behind ’em, and Jacob would go zooming into them. After Jacob had untangled himself from about five webs, he gave up in disgust.”
The music had stopped again, and Mrs. Webb came and joined her husband. She sat down and fanned herself vigorously with a foreleg. “Good grief!” she panted. “I’m too old to be cutting such didoes! Though I must say it’s lots of fun. But why didn’t you cut in again, father? That cricket’s a fine dancer, but he’s the athletic type. My feet weren’t on the floor more than half the time.”
“It’s good for you, mother,” said Mr. Webb, “to get shaken up a little.—Hey!” he exclaimed suddenly. “What’s all this?”
A big horsefly had buzzed down in among the dancers, who were applauding for an encore. With his strong wings humming like a little airplane propeller, he skated in circles about the floor, knocking over the other insects, who scrambled to get out of his way. “Hi, folks!” he shouted. “I’ll show you some dancing that is dancing! Whoopee! Out of the way, strut-and-wiggle!” he cried, barging into a grasshopper couple who were swept aside in a tangle of long legs. “Eee-ee-yow! This is Zero’s night to buzz!”
“Come on, mother,” said Mr. Webb with determination, and the two spiders left Freddy and made for the intruder.
Flies are rather cowardly insects. Zero must have known that the sweep of his wings would knock the spiders aside before they could close in on him, but when he saw them approaching, he flew up and perched on a tall grass stalk that overhung the dance floor.
“Ha, ha!” he shouted. “Frowsy old Webb and his fat wife! You bugs are a dumb lot to let them tell you what you can and can’t do. Is this a free country or is it going to be run by a couple of small-time spiders? Telling you to be patriotic! Patriotic your grandmother! Go on eat what you’ve always eaten. You bet if old Webb liked potatoes he wouldn’t be handing out any such talk. The old kill-joy!”
Freddy thought some of the audience were inclined to agree with Zero. He saw them nodding and talking t
ogether. The Webbs were climbing the grass stalk to get at Zero, but before they reached him the fly flew over to the sign the spiders had woven with so much work, and started beating it to tatters with his wings.
“I’ll make a sign for you,” he said, and to Freddy’s amazement he began weaving something in the hole he had torn. He worked quickly, and before the Webbs could drop to the earth and start up after him again, he had finished. The letters straggled unevenly, but they were plain. “Vote for Zero, the peple’s frend.”
“There,” said the fly; “if you want somebody to tell you what to do, hold an election. That’s the American way. Don’t let some old eight-legged frump without any neck kid you into—”
Freddy had lain perfectly still, and big as he was, Zero had not noticed him. Perhaps the fireflies’ flickering lights confused him, for horseflies don’t usually go out much at night. But now Freddy stood up suddenly, and with a swipe of one fore trotter smashed the sign and its support and Zero down into the grass.
And now if Freddy had had luck, or if he could have seen better what he was doing, Zero’s career might have ended right there. For he was entangled in the grass blades, and Freddy slapped down hard several times, aiming at the sound of frantic buzzing as Zero tried to free himself. And then he did free himself. And as he whizzed by Freddy’s ear, he gave again his irritating laugh. “I’ll be seeing you, pig. But you won’t be seeing me.” And his laugh died away in the distance.
Chapter 11
Freddy, I regret to say, went off to bed without giving Mr. Webb’s troubles another thought. At least he only gave it one thought, and it wasn’t a very important one. This was it: he thought: “That Zero is a nuisance, all right, but flies never stick to one thing very long; I don’t believe he’ll take the trouble to organize any real opposition to Mr. Webb.” And when he had thought that, he turned his attention to his own troubles. And I don’t know that you can blame him.
Freddy and Mr. Camphor Page 8
