ANT VENTURES

By

BLANCHE ELIZABETH WADE
Author of “The Island of Make-Believe”
and “The Magic Stone”

Pictures by

HARRISON CADY

RAND MᶜNALLY & COMPANY

CHICAGO NEW YORK

Copyright, 1924, by
Rand MᶜNally & Company

Made in U. S. A.

The Ant looked, and there sat a Beetle on the same leaf

AROUND THE WORLD FOR
A CHANGE

Once upon a time there was an Ant sitting on a leaf to think. He was tired of working, and his mother had sent him out to hunt for a little green Worm to stow away in the larder, but he did not want to do even that.

“I never saw such a stupid world!” he said aloud. “All there is to do is to carry out the earth all day long, or else go hunting for the family’s food, and I am tired of it all!”

“Ho!” said a voice near him. “All you want is a change. You think you have seen the world, but I will give you something that will cure you. I know your mother well, so you take her this[Pg 8] prescription I am writing. Give it to her with my compliments and tell her I said that it is all you need to make you the happiest Ant in the whole wide world.”

The Ant looked, and there sat a Beetle on the same leaf. He had on large, horn-rimmed spectacles, and was writing busily on a physician’s prescription pad. Any one could see he was a doctor. He handed the prescription to the Ant, took off the big spectacles, and said, “Now run along to your mother, and show her this at once.”

The Ant took the prescription, thanked the Beetle, and ran down the stem of the leaf to the ground and back to Ant-Hill Manor, where he lived. He could not read a word of the prescription himself, for whoever could read a physician’s prescription, anyway? No one but the doctor himself and the[Pg 9] druggist, I am sure. But at the top of the paper the Ant could read plainly:

Alexander Beetle Bug, M. D.

“That must mean Alexander Beetle Bug, Meadow Doctor,” thought the Ant.

Well, sir, when he walked into the main doorway of Ant-Hill Manor and showed the paper to his mother, he found that some one besides doctors and druggists could read prescriptions, for she understood every sign scrawled upon the paper. Dr. Bug had been an old schoolmate of hers, and this was a secret code they had used when they wanted to write notes in school. She had to laugh like everything.

“All right,” said she. “Here is the best advice I ever had. My old friend Dr. Bug says you need a change. So go put up your wheelbarrow, which is lying where you left it when you would[Pg 10] not work this morning, and close the tool-house door carefully when you come out. By that time I shall have your things ready for you. You may start today.”

Off went the Ant to do as he was told. When he came back, there stood his mother with his best hat in one of her hands, his Sunday suit in another of them, his toothbrush, comb, wash cloth, and soap in a little case in another hand, his best Sunday shoes and stockings in another, and a basket of lunch in another.

“Change your things right away,” said she, “for the sooner you begin your trip, the better.”

She gave him his little case, his lunch basket, and his hat
and kissed him good-by

He washed himself and put on his best clothes. When he was ready, she gave him his little case, his lunch basket, and his hat and kissed him good-by. He thought she did not seem very sorry[Pg 11] about his going, and that was queer, for never before had he been away from her overnight. He did not say anything, though, but put on his nice straw hat[Pg 12] with his initials inside—A. A. for Anthony Ant—and down the steps of Ant-Hill Manor he went while all the other Ants waved their feelers at him. Not one of them cried a tear. He even imagined his mother was smiling as though it were all a joke.

Anyway, he had nothing to do now except to go wherever he wanted to, so he decided to keep to the right and go all the way around the field. That would be going around the whole world, he thought. Off he went, over grass and under grass; up stalks and down stalks; into holes and out of holes; around stones and over stones; across stem bridges and across twig bridges; part way on the rail fence; part way on a log; up a stump and across the stump and down the stump; until he was tired from going such a long stretch at a time, and he sat down to rest and to eat[Pg 13] a little of his lunch. He was glad his mother had put so much into the basket, for he was hungry. He took off his best hat, hung it on a short weed near by, and leaned his head against a stout stem. Then he opened the basket and took out some of the lunch.

There were dainty sandwiches made of sliced, cold-boiled caterpillar, some delicious pieces of Butterflies’ wings, and other sandwiches of thinly sliced dried Cricket. In one corner of the basket was a small pot of his favorite meadow-flower honey. There were poppy-seed biscuits too, some clover-sugar cookies, and a huge piece of cold roast Grasshopper which would last him for several meals.

The hat was the best thing the Field Mouse had tasted
in a long time

The Ant felt much refreshed after his rest and the lunch. He packed what was left of the food back in the basket and reached for his hat. Ho! but no[Pg 14] hat was there! He looked and looked under the weed where he had hung it, and everywhere about the place, and all at once he spied a Field Mouse eating the last of its pretty ribbon hatband. It was too late to save even the band of the hat, and all the Field Mouse would say when the Ant spoke about the matter was that the hat was the best thing he had tasted in a long time.[Pg 15] Then off he went to hunt for more best hats to eat, maybe.

Well, to take a trip around the world, and not have a hat to wear, was sad for the Ant, but unless he went home and gave up the trip he would have to go bareheaded. As he was too proud to give up, bareheaded he went, and he tramped all the afternoon, meeting many strange people he never had seen near Ant-Hill Manor. There were Bugs large and small; Bugs that were fierce and Bugs that were kind; strange little Insects; Worms of many different colors; Flies, Moths, and Butterflies of all the old kinds and new kinds too. They were all as happy as could be, and hardly would speak to him, they were so busy. The Ant tried to talk to several of them, but they would not stop their work to listen. They were making their homes, or taking care of them, or hunting for[Pg 16] their suppers. He was the only traveler in the world, he thought.

That night he was more tired than he ever had been on his hardest day of work. He ate an early supper and was almost too tired to open the jar of his favorite honey. He ate a clover-sugar cooky and nearly fell asleep over it, and then went to bed under a dry leaf, after carefully hiding all his things, for he remembered what had happened to his hat.

It was a good thing Anthony Ant had not been hungry the night before, for the next morning he was hungrier than ever he had been at home, and he did just wish he had some of the cereal he had found fault with at home the morning before.

He tied a soft, green leaf under his
chin with a narrow grass blade

But he ate more of the sandwiches and a large piece of the cold roast Grasshopper, and took a drink of water from a little brook near the spot where he had slept. He tried to think plain cold water for breakfast was exactly as good as hot cocoa, which he always had at Ant-Hill Manor in an old-fashioned cup his Grandmother had given him. In fancy letters on one side it said, “For a Good Child.”[Pg 18] Then he set off with the remainder of his food packed in the basket, which was much lighter by this time. His shoes felt pretty tight, but he never had worn them for such long tramps as that of the day before. He made up his mind[Pg 19] he would not go so far all at once again, as he had plenty of time, and at noon he would take all his shoes off and rest all his feet for an hour.

It was a hot morning and the sun beat down on the Ant’s bare head, so he picked a soft, green leaf, put it on his head, and tied it under his chin with a narrow grass blade. That was much better, and he almost sang one of the nursery rimes he had heard played on his phonograph at home. If his feet had not been so large for his shoes, he was sure he would have sung it, words and all.

A large Bird flew out of a tree and pounced down to catch him

He did not feel like singing a little later, for all at once something happened which nearly put an end to him. A large Bird flew out of a tree and pounced down to catch him, and he had barely time to jump into an Angleworm’s open doorway to save his life.[Pg 21] He dropped his little case with his dressing things in it, but managed to hang on to his lunch basket. The Bird was a Flicker, and Flickers are so fond of Ants to eat that it does not matter who the Ant is so long as he is an Ant. Even if he was Anthony Ant of Ant-Hill Manor, he would have been eaten just as quickly if the Flicker could have caught him.

The Ant trembled so that all his knees shook, but he kept as still as he could otherwise, and did not move until long after the Bird had flown away. Then once more he had to move so suddenly that this time he almost lost his lunch basket.

The thing that frightened him was an Angleworm. Mrs. Angleworm wanted to know what he meant by blocking up her doorway like that. He tried to explain, but all she would say was, “Go[Pg 22] away, sir! Go away at once! I do not wish to buy any books at all, nor sewing-machine needles, nor Mexican drawn work, nor soap, nor flavoring extracts, nor silver polish, nor aluminum ware, nor jewelry, nor teas and coffees, nor hand embroidery, nor doormats, nor rugs, nor clocks, nor perfumery, and I do not want to subscribe to The Angleworms’ Home Journal, nor to The Underground Gentleman, nor to The Earth’s Work, nor to The Flower-Bed Magazine, nor to The Literary Hashed News, nor to Little Angleworms’ Companion, so go away, sir! Go away, this minute!”

Oh, my, but the Ant was scared! She had thought him an agent of some kind when she saw the basket in his middle right hand. He opened his mouth to try to explain the whole matter to her, but she would not let him speak.

[Pg 23]

“Go away, I tell you!” said she. “I don’t want my piano tuned, and there’s nothing wrong with the electric lights, and you can’t come in to show me how any vacuum cleaner works, nor a washing machine, either! Go away!”

Out tumbled the poor Ant, and off he stumbled toward the right. He took one backward glance to see if she were following him, and he saw that she had found his little dressing case and was opening it. He hurried back, as scared as he was, for he could not let her have that.

When she saw him again, she said, “Yes, I know! You are an agent, just as I thought! This case proves it! You are trying to sell soap and tooth paste and combs and brushes, and all that sort of thing. I won’t have one of them, so take your old sample case away from here at once!” And she threw it at him[Pg 24] with such good aim that it nearly hit him on the head.

Poor Anthony Ant! All his things packed so neatly by his mother were spilled all over the ground, and while he hurried as fast as he could to pick them up she scolded and scolded as he never had been scolded before.

At last he was out of hearing of her sharp tongue, and, out of breath, he sat down under a large stone to rest. He felt sure he was safe at last, for the stone was like a ledge, and came out over his head, so no Bird could see him. The ground was smooth and hard, so no Angleworm could be living there, he thought. He untied his green leaf hat, and then pulled off all his best shoes, for his feet were so sore and tired he could not tell which of all the pairs hurt the worst. The shoes he placed all in a row.

[Pg 25]

By looking at the shadows the sun cast out beyond the stone, he could tell that it was time for dinner. At home there was always a fine, hearty dinner, hot and nourishing, as Mrs. Ant knew well that those who worked hard at such labor as made the muscles exercise needed good, hearty food. But no fine, hearty dinner, hot and nourishing, waited ready for him to eat now. He had only what was left in his lunch basket, and I can tell you that, when he opened the cover and saw how the lunch had gotten mixed up from being all joggled by his hard running, it did not look very appetizing. No, sir-ee! As he tried to scrape the honey back into his jar from which the cover had been shaken, he almost cried, for the honey was full of crumbs from the sandwiches, and the sandwiches looked like old scraps to be thrown away instead of[Pg 26] eaten. The filling had all come out, and the clover-sugar cookies were damp and sticky, and the big piece of cold roast Grasshopper might have been almost anything but food from the looks of it. Besides, sand had gotten into the things, and everything he tried to eat was gritty.

There was one good thing about the Ant, anyway. He did not give up, even with aching feet and gritty food to discourage him. He ate what he could and thought that pretty soon, after a rest, he would steal out to see if he could find a juicy berry anywhere. That would refresh him and perhaps make him forget the gritty food he had been forced to eat.

“I think I’ll leave my shoes where they are,” thought he. “They will be safe here, I am sure. It will rest me to go barefoot a bit.”

[Pg 27]

So he left his row of shoes and also his stockings, but he took along his little case and his basket, for he thought he might find a place to bathe himself, and he might even find a little food to put into his basket. But he did not throw away a bit of the gritty food, for he did not know when he could find any good thing to eat, and he might need even the unappetizing mix-up in his basket before he found anything.

It was rather hard stepping out barefooted at first, for even when he was working at home he had good, stout shoes always, as the Ants of Ant-Hill Manor were different from most Ants to be seen anywhere, as you may have guessed by this time. Also, it was harder to walk, as his feet had been made tender by the long tramp in his best shoes, which were new. But he took a slow gait, and by and by he came to the[Pg 28] brook again. He dipped all his feet into the water, and he took a fine bath too, and dried himself in the warm sunshine on a big stone. It made him feel like another Ant, he was so rested. He sat there a long time. Then he began to hunt about for a juicy berry, and for whatever else there might be that Ants like to eat when they are not at home where they can have things put on to the table for them and don’t have to wonder where their meals are to come from.

Across the brook, which was narrow here, he spied a bush that had berries on it, although the season for berries was nearly over. Perhaps you think a little thing like an Ant cannot get across even a narrow brook, but he can. And so could this Ant, for, though he never had taken so long a trip before, yet he knew somehow the many tricks of getting[Pg 29] across a brook. He stood on the big stone nearest the edge of the water until a piece of leaf floated down near him. Then he jumped upon the floating leaf and stayed on it until it sailed as far as he wished it to take him. Then, as it bobbed against a stone, he crawled off to that stone out in the stream, and found a narrow bridge of grass root that had lodged near the stone. This bridge took him within jumping distance of another stone, and that stone made him nearer the middle of the brook. There he found a dead branch of tree in the water, and this helped him all the way over to the other side, as it reached from the middle of the stream to the opposite bank.

He was more than glad when, after a long tramp over and under and around things, he came to the berry bush. Up it he went to the very first berry he could[Pg 30] see, and took a good taste of the juice. It surely made him fairly glow with happiness once more, for in every creature there is a glow of happiness, whether you believe it or not, even though sometimes the glow of happiness is covered up by his own doings or wrong thoughts. Anyway, for the first time since leaving Ant-Hill Manor, Anthony Ant felt a glow of happiness. He sat for a long time on the stem of the berry, and looked all about him while he rested, and kept tasting the sweet juice of the very ripe berry. What a wise doctor his mother’s old friend was, to be sure! The Ant decided not to go home too soon, but to keep right on taking that good Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug’s prescription and let the others do the work of Ant-Hill Manor.

Anthony Ant’s glow of happiness cheered him for some time, and then he happened to think he had to go back across the brook again after his shoes. He had left his basket and dressing case on the other side too. If he had only known about the berry bush sooner, he would have brought everything over in the first place and saved himself a lot of work. Sitting and thinking about the matter would not do any good, so he took one more taste of a good berry and down he started.

He met many large black Ants going up and down the bush to the berries and back to their homes. But they gave him no more than a passing glance, as they were not out seeing the world, but carrying food to their homes. Those[Pg 32] going home had bits of dried berries, sweet to the taste though not juicy, and every Ant attended to his work as hard as possible.

It was not an easy trip back to the brook even after the refreshing berry juice. The Ant had to wait some time after going back over the dead branch to the stone, and over the stone to another stone where the grass bridge was, before he could find anything floating near enough to jump upon for a ferryboat.

At last along came a thin piece of wood. He gave a jump and landed upon it all right, and was settling down to watch for a stone nearer shore, and a chance to get to it, when down on to the wood fluttered a leaf from a tree. On the leaf was a Caterpillar as fuzzy as he could be, but fussy.

“I don’t like Ants on my pleasure boat,” said the Caterpillar.
“Get off!”

“I don’t like Ants on my pleasure boat,” said he. “Get off!”

[Pg 34]

“O sir, but I can’t!” cried the Ant, much frightened. “I did not know this was your boat. I was just trying to cross the brook and jumped on to the first thing that came near enough to my stone where I was waiting. If I should get off now, I should be drowned!”

“You are a careless person,” said Mr. Caterpillar. “You should have looked first before jumping.”

“But nobody was on the boat then,” answered the Ant.

“It does not make any difference,” said the Caterpillar. “You might have known that I might board it at any time. However, you may stay until there is a chance for you to get off.”

“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the Ant. “I’ll be very quiet and not rock the boat a bit.”

The fussy old Caterpillar walked up and down his pleasure boat all the[Pg 35] time. When he came to one end, he raised his head and, moving it back and forth, looked all about him. Then he turned around and crawled to the other end and did the same thing, He kept this up until all at once the boat bumped against the shore itself, for they had drifted in.

“Well,” said he, “here’s land at last. I may as well get off here as anywhere. You go first, and I’ll see how you manage.”

The Ant was glad to be upon land once more, and lost no time in jumping to the stone from the bobbing bit of wood the Caterpillar called a pleasure boat. The Caterpillar was so fussy that he would not hurry off, but stood talking about his work to be done. The pleasure boat was only a fancy of his, and was really not his, but he was on his way to put himself into the best place[Pg 36] he could find for a long sleep till time to be a Butterfly. Traveling was not pleasure for him, but part of his life work. Whether he liked traveling or not, he had to tramp on and on and on, ever so far, before taking that long sleep of his which would be the last of him as a Caterpillar. When he woke from a beautiful, splendiferous dream that would last for a long time, he hoped to find himself a lovely Butterfly.

“I have traveled so long on my feet,” he told the Ant, “that I thought I’d make part of my journey a water trip. That is why I am on this pleasure boat.”

“What makes the boat yours?” asked Anthony Ant, for, now that he was safe on the shore, he was not afraid to ask the Caterpillar a question or two.

“Why,” replied the fussy Caterpillar, “it’s mine because I took it, of course!”

[Pg 37]

“Oh, but I took it first,” said the Ant. “I was already aboard when you dropped down on to the deck with your leaf from the tree. If just taking a boat makes it belong to you, it is more mine than yours, for I had already taken it, you know.”

“Never mind,” the fuzzy, fussy Caterpillar answered. “The boat is mine now, and I will not quarrel with you. It is wrong to quarrel, anyway, and it is very bad for any one to quarrel before going to sleep. It will spoil the best dream, and I do not intend to spoil the long, lovely one I am going to have. He who goes to bed quarreling and cross gets up ill-tempered and unhappy, and maybe it would spoil my chances of having beautiful colors as a Butterfly. I have chosen purple and gold, and I should like to have wings with fancy scallops on the edges too. So I shall not quarrel[Pg 38] one word with you, for if I do I may wake up just a common old everyday sort of Moth, and that would be disgraceful. I should simply crawl away under a leaf and die of shame, I know. So, when I say the boat is mine, do not dispute me! If you do, you will be sorry, for when your long sleep comes your dream will be a bad one, and you will find when you wake up that you are not a beautiful Butterfly at all, but a horrid, plain, mean little Moth Fly, probably.”

“Oh,” said Anthony, “but you see, I am not going to be a Butterfly anyway. I don’t want to be a Butterfly!”

“What!” shouted the Caterpillar, so surprised that he nearly stood up on his tail. “Don’t want to be a Butterfly! I never heard of such a thing in my life! You must be a very bad young person, indeed! Why, sir, the thing is the worst[Pg 39] I ever heard! Mercy, me! Not want to be a Butterfly! Oh, my, my!”

“Oh, but Ants do not turn into Butterflies!” explained Anthony, for, as young as he was, he knew that he never would be anything but an Ant if he lived ever so long.

“Don’t tell me that!” cried the fuzzy, fussy Caterpillar. “The thing is unbelievable! Besides, did I not meet you on your long travel? There, sir, that proves you are soon going to take your long sleep and wake up a Butterfly, unless you have spoiled your chances by telling such a wrong story as that! Perhaps you will say you have not been eating all you can hold, up to this time, on purpose to get ready for the long sleep when there will be no chance to eat.”

“No,” answered the Ant, “I have not been eating all I can hold at all, for my food has about given out, and I have[Pg 40] been across the stream to refresh myself with the juice of the berries on a large bush. I could eat a lot more food if I could get it.”

“Oh, well,” said the Caterpillar, “that is because you are young, you see. I was hungry all the time till I grew to my full size. By the time you are as large as I am, you will have had all you want to eat. You see, you have made a mistake. Here you are taking the long journey before you have eaten the proper amount. My dear young sir, you have gotten the matter twisted. You are living your life the wrong side around. You are beginning with the traveling, when you should have begun with the eating and kept at it till you had grown as large as you could. It is a lucky thing you happened to find yourself on my pleasure boat, for if you had not met me you would just go on doing everything[Pg 41] the wrong way around. Oh, my, my! You might even have tried to begin being a Butterfly without first falling asleep. Only fancy! Now go right away this minute till you find a tender young bush, and don’t you stop eating that bush till you are my size. Then do your traveling, and you will be ready for the long dream time, and wake up a beautiful Butterfly almost as handsome as I shall be. Run along, now!”

“But aren’t you going to land here, too? You said so,” said the Ant, “and you told me to land first so you could see how I did it. Even if I cannot do as you advise me, because no Ant ever turned into a Butterfly, yet I shall be glad to help you get off to this stone if you want me to hang on to the boat to steady it.”

“Certainly not!” declared the fussy, fuzzy Caterpillar. “I have decided to[Pg 42] travel a little farther. I shall not land here at all. I am afraid I should quarrel with you after all if I did. Push me off! I cannot have my chances of becoming a beautiful purple and gold Butterfly, with fancy scallops on the edges of my wings, spoiled by landing. Push me off!”

[Pg 43]

The Ant pushed as well as he could, but it was really the fuzzy, fussy Caterpillar putting his whole weight on the other side of the boat that started it down the stream again. The last that Anthony Ant saw of him he was walking up and down the deck as fussily as ever as the current swept him out of sight around a large stone.

“Push me off!” said the fussy, fuzzy Caterpillar

After there was no more to see of the fussy, fuzzy Caterpillar’s fur coat, the Ant sat a moment to think at the edge of the water, for the words of the Caterpillar had given him much to think about. For one thing, he made up his mind that any one might be too fussy altogether about things, as when the Caterpillar talked so much about who owned the boat, and would not sit or stand still while he talked, but walked up and down the boat in that tiresome way. He had learned that, since Caterpillars did not seem to know about Ants, perhaps Ants did not know all there was to know about Caterpillars, so maybe it was wrong for him to call the Caterpillar fussy. Maybe fussiness was just part of being a Caterpillar.

[Pg 45]

Ho! but there was another thing he had learned, and that was that it was wrong to quarrel, and especially to quarrel the last thing before going to sleep! Of course his mother often had told him that, and there were times when he had been punished hard for quarreling with his brothers and sisters. But, if even fussy, fuzzy old Caterpillars said it was wrong to quarrel, it must be a thing of truth. Otherwise, fussy, fuzzy old Caterpillars would not have bothered about it.

It did not hurt Anthony Ant to do a little thinking like that, for it was not often that he thought of anything but fun, when he was not carting out loads of earth or hunting for food for the family’s larder. But after a bit he began to think of his rows of shoes waiting for him. Then he must find the spot where he had left his basket and little case.

[Pg 46]

After tramping a little way upstream, he remembered the spot where he had left them was a little farther down instead. You know, Ants often walk along exactly as though they knew where they were going, and then change their minds and are not so sure after all that was the right way, and back they go and maybe start a dozen different ways before they choose the one they had in mind. Anthony Ant found the right spot before he had made more than two tries at it, and there were his things all right. But, sir, what do you think? Why, a Ladybug and a small Spider, Size Two were helping themselves to the things in his lunch basket, if you please!

Anthony Ant was about to shout, “Here, you stop that! That is my basket,” when he suddenly thought of the fussy, fuzzy Caterpillar and how[Pg 47] horrid it sounded when the Caterpillar tried to say he owned the boat. And all at once the Ant became more polite than he ever had been at home when he did not like the way things were going.

“I beg your pardon,” said he, “but do you know I left my lunch basket and little dressing case here when I went across the brook after berry juice? So I have come back to get them, if you do not mind.”

Well, sir, you should have seen what happened! Why, the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two were so surprised at the politeness, they backed off and sat down and just stared at Anthony. It was some time before either spoke, and then the Ladybug found her voice.

“It is quite true that I am a Ladybug,” said she, “and so it is not unusual for me to be spoken to politely by gentlemen, but in all my life I never have been[Pg 48] spoken to so pleasantly by any one. It is all the more to be wondered at when you find me meddling with what does not belong to me, too. Most Bugs of any kind would have scolded me or boxed my ears or at least hollered at me to get out, but you are a real gentleman if ever there was one!”

“Yes,” said the small Spider, Size Two. “Most Bugs would have eaten me up or bitten me or something. I never was so kindly spoken to before when I was poking about other people’s property. You must have been to college, I should say. I have heard that by the time one goes through school and college one has fine manners, and yours are the finest I have seen around here.”

Oh, my! How proud Anthony Ant was, to be sure! He was so glad he had remembered about the Caterpillar before he said the bad words.

[Pg 49]

“No,” he answered, “I have not been to college at all. I am on a trip around the world, so I am not going to college this year, I am sure.”

“Well,” said the Ladybug, “seeing the world also gives one fine manners, but it depends upon how you go about it, of course. If it is not well managed, it makes some people most disagreeable, and they come back home so rude you would not want to know them.”

“How fine a fellow you must be,” exclaimed the small Spider, Size Two, “to go all around the world in order to get good manners! It must be much harder than going through college.”

Now, Anthony Ant was honest, whatever he wasn’t, and he had to hang his head, for we know very well why he was taking the trip around the world.

So he said, “Oh, I beg your pardon, but you are both mistaken, for I haven’t[Pg 50] good manners at all. I was cross when I left home, and I wouldn’t work when my mother asked me to, nor go hunting for things for our family to eat. So Dr. Beetle Bug told my mother I needed a change, and they both have sent me off on this trip.”

“Dr. Beetle Bug, did you say?” asked the Ladybug. “Do you mean Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug?”

“Yes,” said Anthony Ant. “Do you know him?”

“Oh, yes, indeed!” she replied, laughing.

“So do I,” put in the small Spider, Size Two, “and he is one of the most famous doctors in the world. It pays to follow his advice, and when I see him next time I’ll tell him I met you and that you are better already.”

“Tell me,” said the Ladybug, “is this the best lunch you can find? It looks so[Pg 51] queer to me. I did not know that Ants ate such strange food.”

“Oh, that is because it has been all joggled up,” explained the Ant, and he told how he had run so hard and fast from the Angleworm.

“It was really and truly a most delicious lunch when Mother put it up for me, and all the sandwiches were wrapped up carefully in waxed paper. But now, dear me, what a mess they are in! And sand has gotten into all the food, but I did not dare to throw it away. It is not easy to find food sometimes. All I have had since eating some of the joggled-up lunch is the berry juice from the berries over the brook. I am going after my shoes and stockings, which I left under a big stone near here. Then I shall take all my things across the brook to the bush and gather some of the dried berries that still are sweet.[Pg 52] They will last me till I can find something more nourishing.”

“Why,” said the Ladybug, “I can tell you something that will help you right out of your trouble. Not far from that berry bush is the finest restaurant you ever saw. It is called the Wild-Rose Tea House, and it is of the sort where you go around and help yourself to what you like best, and pay as you go away.”

“It sounds tempting,” said the Ant, “but, you see, Mother did not give me any money, and I have to live on what I can get myself.”

Then up spoke the small Spider, Size Two. “Ho!” cried he. “I have a plan. Let us all go there and have a party. It happens to be my birthday, and I invite you to come to my birthday party. Run along and get your shoes and stockings, Mr. Ant, and we’ll wait for you[Pg 53] here. Then we’ll all go over the brook to the Wild-Rose Tea House.”

Well, Anthony felt ashamed to accept the invitation, but they both begged so hard that at last he said he would. Then he hurried after his shoes and stockings.

When Anthony Ant had come back with his shoes and stockings, he first washed himself carefully at the brook, and combed his hair, and brushed his teeth with the nice Marsh-Mint Dental Cream his mother had put into his case for him. The Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two sat near by watching him and praising the pretty and the nice-smelling toilet articles his mother had put in for him. The Ladybug wrote down the name of his soap in her notebook so she could get some at the first large field drug store she came to. The soap was called Meadow-Scent Soap. The paper it was wrapped in said the soap was the best for the skin and made a good lather even in the coldest and hardest spring water.

[Pg 55]

“I am more than ever sure, Mr. Ant,” said she, “that if you had not told me you never had been to college I never should have known it. Any one with such good manners as yours, and also such fancy toilet articles, could easily make any one think he had been through the most noted college in the world.”

“You are most kind,” said the Ant. “I can see now that it paid when Mother made me take pains with my washing and dressing, though I used to cry so hard when she was teaching me, and I hated to have my ears washed and squealed like a good fellow.”

“Or a bad fellow, maybe you meant,” suggested the small Spider, Size Two.

“You are right,” the Ant answered. “But I am taking a lot of pains now, for since you have invited me to your birthday party I must look as clean as I can.”

[Pg 56]

At last his last shoe was on and tied neatly, and he had flicked the dust from the shoes as well as he could with a little tuft of grass he used as a whisk broom, and off the party started. The small Spider, Size Two asked to be allowed to carry the lunch basket for luck. The Ant let him do it, as the small Spider, Size Two really seemed to want to. The three soon found a good place to wait for some floating thing coming downstream they might use for a boat.

It was not long before a fine large piece of wood—a clean flat chip from a tree—came sailing down. It was white and freshly cut from some tree a woodcutter was chopping down in the woods somewhere.

“Oh!” cried the Ladybug. “What a lovely excursion boat! The decks must have been newly scrubbed and the whole thing painted white on purpose for our[Pg 57] birthday celebration. It is going to stop, too. See, it is coming straight to the shore right here!”

Sure enough! Any one could see that. It came as though by a sort of magic trick, for the fresh chip sailed as straight toward them as though it had been alive and they had called to it. In fact, Anthony Ant had called to it in his excitement, “Hey, there! Chip, ahoy!”

Even in his excitement he had thought it more suitable to say, “Chip, ahoy!” than “Ship, ahoy!” you see.

The current brought it to the shore in this quiet pool, though the chip was so large that the end of it still reached the edge of the current and the little boat bobbled a bit—if there is such a word as bobble, and if there isn’t there ought to be, for that is what the boat did anyway. Before the Ant could help the Ladybug aboard politely, as he intended[Pg 58] to do, she had flown aboard herself, so eager was she to try that snowy-white deck. So the Ant and the small Spider, Size Two tossed the little dressing case and the lunch box on to the boat and then made quick jumps themselves. They were not a second too soon, either, for the current was coaxing the little chip back again to do more than just bobble idly at the edge of the pool. Off it went to the center of the brook as the current told it to, and the fun really began.

“I wish we could sail all day like this,” said the Ladybug with a deep sigh. “It is the best boat I ever have tried, and I have tried a great many different kinds. It smells so nice too, the wood is so sweet. And to be on the water a day like this is a dream of happiness.”

“I wish we could sail all day like this,” said the Ladybug

“Well,” said the small Spider, Size Two, “why can’t we come aboard it [Pg 59]again, and sail downstream after the party? I almost feel it in my bones that this boat will wait for us till then, and the things I feel in my bones always come true. Even in the matter of the making of a new web house, I go by the feeling in my bones. When I start to plan the house, if the feeling in my[Pg 60] bones tells me the place I have chosen for the house is not the right one, I never build there. I start another house; and if the feeling in my bones tells me I am right, I know I am, and I just build the house right off. The feeling in my bones never has failed to tell me the truth. So, as it now tells me we can take this trip after the party, I believe we can.”

The Ladybug clapped her wings up and down for joy at that, and Anthony Ant felt that Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug knew how to write prescriptions. There surely could not be anything better for any one than a change.

Well, sir, the next stop of the chip came sooner than they expected. A little sudden breeze from the side sent them up against a huge water-soaked log that must have lain in the brook for years. The current, acting with the breeze at the same time, made the chip dart[Pg 61] suddenly up back of this log where the water was so still that the little boat did not bobble at all, but lay quiet on the surface close to the log.

“There, sir!” exclaimed the small Spider, Size Two. “The feeling in my bones must be true, for the boat is safe enough in this harbor for one while. There’s no danger of anything but a strong breeze from this side taking it away again, and as the wind is the other way we have nothing to worry about.”

They crawled up the log to the top. The Ladybug could have flown across the brook as well as not, of course, instead of having to wait for a boat to help her part way over. But often she chose to travel as the Bugs that cannot fly travel; and, as she was making this trip with these two that could not fly, she stayed with them.

It was a long trip to the Wild-Rose[Pg 62] Tea House from that landing place, but they made it in short time. Soon they were seated, as cosy as you please, about a green leaf table with an extra leaf put in so they would not be crowded, and they had the daintiest birthday-special luncheon, as it was called, served to them by the Rosebug waiter. The dishes were shaped like wild roses, and there was a bit of rose flavor in nearly all the food that was served. Sandwiches of rose petals were cut into rose shape. Instead of lettuce, rose leaves were used shredded into ribbons, and the salad, made of wild berries and woods small fruits, was arranged on the leaf ribbons. When the ice cream came, it was found to be pink and in the form of roses. Even the Ladybug, who had been there before, had to say, “Oh!” it was so delicious. There was a birthday cake too, with candles of pink, and the candles [Pg 64]gave out rose scent while burning. This was no common cafeteria meal.

It was a long trip to the Wild-Rose Tea House

Then came a surprise Ant Venture for the Ant. At a sign from the small Spider, Size Two, the waiter placed Anthony’s lunch basket before Anthony and raised the cover. Inside, in the most delicate pink Japanese napkins of rose pattern, was enough of each thing served at the Wild-Rose Tea House to last Anthony for several meals. A card tied to the handle with pink ribbon said:

For a Perfect Gentleman
With the Compliments of
Dot-ty Ladybug
and
Web-ster Spider

Oh, my, my, my! Such a glow went all through Anthony Ant that he felt as pink as the pinkest rose that ever blossomed on that bush. And to think[Pg 65] that all this joy had come to him because he had not said the cross words he nearly said when he found these friends meddling with his basket! Why, he was beginning to have a feeling in his bones, too, and the feeling in his bones told him that all that Mother Antoinette Ant ever had told him about being kind and calm and speaking gently was perfectly true!

Oh, my, my, my! Such a glow went through Anthony Ant

The Ant noticed that before they left the Wild-Rose Tea House the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two, after a talk aside with the waiter, each had a confectioner’s box to carry. He thought probably they had bought some of the wild-rose fancy cakes to take home to their families. But he was so busy thinking how to say “Thank you” to them for their present to him, and for the party too, that he thought no more about the boxes, and they all went back down the bush to the place where the log would bring them to the boat once more.

They spied the white chip gleaming against the dark water below them, as safe as possible. It did not take them many minutes to get aboard and to stow their parcels in a space in the middle[Pg 67] where no bobbling would jubble them off into the water. Jubble is a most uncommon word too, and means what would happen if the boat should bobble so hard that the things would be thrown off into the water. Then they sat down to wait, as there was nothing else to do. They all three tried to poke the boat away from the log by pushing against the log as hard as they could with their hands all at once. But, in spite of all the hands they had among the three of them, there was not strength enough, with all of them pushing, to send the boat out into the free water.

“The wind will change sooner or later,” said the small Spider, Size Two. “That is one thing always true about wind—it has to change sooner or later. Sometimes it is sooner and sometimes it is later. This may be one of the later times, but there is nothing easier to do[Pg 68] than waiting. While we are waiting we can plan about how far we can go and how long we can stay.”

“If we have to start late, we cannot stay long nor go far,” said the Ladybug, “for there will be the journey back to take, except for you, Mr. Ant. You won’t have to go back, of course, since you are traveling around the world. All you will have to do will be to land when we do, and keep on going to the right. But we have families who need us, so we have to go back.”

“That is so,” the Ant answered, and already he felt sorry to think that the trip with these friends could not go right on. If only they would go around the world with him! He teased them to say they would, but they said that, as much as they would like to travel with him, they must not. Besides, they added, they were not in need of a change, as[Pg 69] they were so happy at home with their families that the families were quite all the change they needed.

“Anyway, we can have a happy time all the afternoon,” said the Ladybug, “for our families will not need us till night. Never think about the saying good-by part of a pleasure until the good-by part of it comes, is my motto.”

“That is a fine motto,” said the small Spider, Size Two. “I wish I had it embroidered and framed to hang over the mantelpiece in every house I build.”

“Some day I shall be glad to embroider it for you,” said the Ladybug.

“Oh, and will you embroider one for me, too?” asked the Ant eagerly. “I am sure Mother would be so pleased, for she says things that sound like that. I’ll ask her to invite you to pay us a long visit when I get back, if you will. You’d love Ant-Hill Manor, I know!”

[Pg 70]

“But you don’t love it, do you?” said the Ladybug. “You were so eager to leave it, you see.”

“Well,” replied the Ant, looking much ashamed of himself, “to tell you the truth, I think it was the work I wanted to leave more than it was the home.”

“Well, the change will show you a grand mistake in that way of thinking,” the Ladybug told him, “but I shall be glad to embroider the motto for you if you really care to have it.”

“Oh, thank you!” cried the Ant. “Give me your address, and when I come back from my trip I shall be glad to call for it some day, and bring you the invitation to our home at the same time.”

“It is Knot-Hole Barkalow,” said the Ladybug, “and it is in the knot hole of the big elm tree nearest the place you found us. My house is really a small[Pg 71] bungalow, but it fitted the house better to call it a barkalow. You come up the tree and tap seven times, and I shall know who it is. In case you get no answer, you will know I am out on a little marketing trip or doing errands that have to be done, so walk in and make yourself at home till I come back.”

“Thank you,” said the Ant, and wrote the address in his notebook.

And then, oh me, oh my! There was a frightful splash in the water near them, and the little boat bobbled so hard that not only their baggage but they themselves were nearly jubbled into the brook.

“What was that?” cried Anthony Ant, much scared.

“It must have been an earthquake!” said the Ladybug.

“More like a waterquake, I should say!” gasped the small Spider, Size Two,[Pg 72] who had swallowed some of the water that splashed into his face.

There was a frightful splash in the water near them

“Oh, now I know what it was!” cried the Ladybug. “It was only a Bullfrog jumping from the log. This must be his diving pool. Oh, but look! We are sailing at last!”

[Pg 73]

So they were, and in that plunge Mr. Bullfrog had done them a good turn rather than a bad overturn! The boat was floating out into the brook again, and the voyage downstream had begun. Gently sailed the boat. Though it still bobbled a little from its shaking, it bobbed evenly and was in no danger of giving its passengers an unhappy jubbling at present.

It was the happiest trip on the water ever taken in the whole world, so they all thought. Sometimes the little boat would stick for a few minutes where something stopped it in its course. Then it would get free from the stone or whatever blocked the way, and downstream it would go again. There were many things to see by the way on each side, and the small Spider, Size Two and the Ladybug explained to Anthony all the things he did not know.

[Pg 74]

The boat stopped at a small island of stones and gravel in the middle of the brook late in the afternoon, and there they thought it best to end the trip. They carried the parcels to the island and left the little boat to itself. It might go on once more, or stay as long as it liked. They would not need it any more, they thought, and they explored the little island for an hour. Then it was that the Ant found out what was in the boxes the others had brought.

As they sat under the shade of a thick weed, the Ladybug opened her box and took out a rose-patterned paper tablecloth and spread it on the clean stones. Then came afternoon tea from both boxes—even a small tea-house stove to boil water for the tea in the tiny tea-kettle. They would not let the Ant open his lunch basket at all. That is why they had brought the things themselves[Pg 75] for the picnic—so he could save all his, which he would need on his trip. If you never have eaten wild-rose tea cakes, you have missed cakes worth while. There were pink candies, rose-mint flavored and shaped like roses, and such dainty sandwiches you never saw, nor I, either!

After the tea it was time for the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two to go home. Anthony went to see them off, and there was the little white boat that looked so tempting to take once more.

“Well, we might as well take it,” decided the Ladybug. “Mr. Ant can come too, for, when it once starts, it may bump us against something from which we can crawl to a stone nearer shore. He can stay on and sail farther, for there is a bend in the brook that will take him a long distance toward the right, and he can get off when the brook bends back again.”

[Pg 76]

It was as though the whole thing had been planned to give the three the best surprise yet. Almost as soon as they were aboard, with Anthony’s baggage too, the boat started down again, and suddenly a sharp turn about a rock made the current send the boat in a slanting push across to a bowlder so near the shore they could easily reach it from such a fine landing place.

They all made the jump from the boat safely, and waved their feelers and hands after the boat, for they could see it was not going to wait for the Ant this time. He would not have that boat ride down the bend after all. He did not care, for he had his things all with him and could cross some way later. He had intended merely to land with them on the bowlder and watch them as they landed, then go back to the boat; but, as it had floated away, he did not care. They[Pg 77] clambered to the top of the bowlder to see how the shore looked, and all at once they saw a large sign which said:

Wonderful Insect Band Concert
Here Tonight
Free
Come and Bring Your Friends

“Oh, my!” cried the small Spider, Size Two. “We ought to hear that! It was advertised in last night’s paper, and I am sure it will be fine. Ever hear a band concert, Mr. Ant?”

“Never!” replied the Ant. “Mother never would take me, but sent me to bed too early to hear any concert of any kind.”

“Oh,” said the Ladybug, “we must hear it!”

“What about the home folks?” asked the small Spider, Size Two.

“I’ll tell you what,” said she. “Go to the nearest telephone booth and call up your wife and tell her. She will let my family know too, for she is the best neighbor I have, and we’ll get back before so very late.”

[Pg 79]

Ah! but there was no telephone on the grounds, so the small Spider, Size Two sent a wireless message instead, and the matter was arranged.

As the dark came slowly, a Bat and all his cousins appeared from the woods somewhere or other and flew gayly about in the air, they were so excited about the concert. And the Fireflies began to bring out their little lanterns and try them on the dark corners here and there to see about the flash workings, and they began their dance about the place. The Crickets were vibrating their wing cases, and all sorts of insects that are more or less still all day were trying their violins, and flutes, and zippers, and zingers, and zoomers, and buzzoons, and drummerinos, and all the funny instruments only night insects know how to play. It was all very exciting. The three friends took hold of hands and sat on a small bench [Pg 81]made of bark. They did not speak a loud word, it was so beautiful. There was a large crowd, for everybody from all the places around came.

The Fireflies began to bring out their little lanterns

“Which is your favorite sound?” whispered the Ladybug to the Ant.

“Why, I think it is the quiet, soothing sound those pale green insects with the wings you can see through are making,” he answered.

“Ah!” said she. “Those are the so-called August Croakers. They are a sort of Tree Cricket, and they sing every evening as soon as the dusk is near enough. They will not stop till the frost puts an end to their song.”

“They are my favorite too,” said the small Spider, Size Two. “Those loud, zippy things that make such a lot of exciting noise with their funny jiggerettes are all right for a little while to liven things up a bit, but for a steady,[Pg 82] all-around, satisfying sound, give me the August Croakers every time.”

As some of the concert was sure to last most of the night, the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two thought they would better not stay after the Fireflies had finished the most lively part of their dance. They said good-by to the Ant and slipped away in the dark before he could thank them again for the great kindness they had shown him. All at once it was as though the night had shut him in with a smothering feeling of unhappiness. He was alone!

Anthony Ant went back to the dark bench and sat there alone trying to think what to do next. If the August Croakers had not been there with their comforting sounds, and the Crickets with their cheerful trills, he would have cried, he was sure. He watched the Fireflies and the Bats, and tried to follow the tune[Pg 83] the loud, zippy insects were playing. It must be a sort of Hungarian gypsy dance, he thought, for he had heard that Hungarian music played by gypsies was of the wild, queer kind.

All at once Anthony Ant thought of his home and nice soft bed. He was tired from so much happiness all day and so much loneliness suddenly, and how he wished he could walk into the doorway of Ant-Hill Manor and find himself in his own snug corner where the Night could not hurt him! It seemed all at once, you see, as though the Night was something that would catch and hurt him. Anyway, he knew it would not do to sit on that bench all night. How he wished his friends had asked him to go with them! To be safe in Knot-Hole Barkalow with the Ladybug family or in some snug place with the small Spider, Size Two family, would[Pg 84] be better than to be alone in a strange place. The other insects were going to their homes, and the place was getting more lonely every minute. There were fewer lights from the Firefly lanterns, and the Crickets were not so cheerful as at first, for even they were getting sleepy.

Anthony Ant left the bench and stole through the many shadows to the bank of the brook again. To hear its murmur was a little more cheerful, for he had heard it all day while sailing with his friends and traveling near it.

As he walked along the edge he came to the great bowlder where they had landed. He climbed to the top to see if in the dark there was anything to be seen. The pale moon was shining faintly over the water, and as he stood upon the top of the bowlder he saw a sight that made him a wee bit happy. The boat[Pg 85] he thought gone forever was stuck near the shore farther down. If he could walk down the shore a little distance, he could get aboard. Maybe it would not seem so lonely on the white chip where he had been so happy. So he wearily climbed down the bowlder and, with his lunch basket and dressing case, crawled slowly along the shore until he came to the boat, and glad was he to find he could get on deck easily. This he did, and while the chip swung gently in some weeds without bobbling at all, he fell asleep and forgot how lonely he was and how afraid he was of the Night. He even had one pleasant little dream about the birthday party at the Wild-Rose Tea House!

If Anthony Ant had thought the day before that Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug knew how to write a prescription that was good for something, the same prescription did not seem so joyful when he wakened early next morning. He found that the chip was bobbling horribly and that if he had not used his dressing case for a pillow, and tied his lunch basket to his belt, probably both would have been jubbled into the brook in the night. He sat up in a hurry and discovered that he must have drifted far away from the place he had boarded the chip the night before.

There was nothing on either shore that looked the least like anything he had seen the day before. My, but he was scared!

[Pg 87]

“Oh, where am I?” he thought. “I must have gone ’way past the bend of the brook and halfway down to the other end of the world! This is awful! I’d better get off right away!”

Oh, but he couldn’t get off right away! The current was too swift, and there was no chance to jump to anything near the boat. He had to hang on as hard as ever was, and sail away whether he wanted to or not. He was hungry too, for he had not tasted anything since the picnic afternoon tea of the day before, but with the bobbling of the boat he could not even open his lunch basket. There was nothing to do but to wait until something happened.

The something which happened did it so quickly that Anthony Ant did not know what it was. All he knew was that he was sore from head to foot from a big bump he got when something dashed[Pg 88] the chip against a large stone near the middle of the brook. The boat itself had had its last trip for a long time, as any one could tell by looking at it. It stood on its side against the stone, and a mass of weeds and grass that had floated down after it now wedged it in so it could not get out unless a most out-of-the-way thing should let it out of its prison.

The Ant had his things with him, anyway, and that was something. Maybe his mother had guessed that his journey would not all be easy and that there might be bumps and scratches and bruises, for mothers know all about those things always. So in his dressing case he found salve in a tiny jar, and something to put on bumps, and a small roll of bandages, and even a little bottle of liniment for lameness.

A big lump that nearly made him cry[Pg 89] seemed to get into his throat when he thought about Mother Ant so far away in that cosy Ant-Hill Manor. Whenever he was hurt, she had such a cuddly way of taking him into her lap and rocking him in the big rocking-chair, and saying, “Poor little Anthony! Did he hurt himself on the bad stones? There, there, there! Don’t cry now, Mother’s petkins! It will be all well soon. Let Mother kiss it. There, there! See the pretty pictures of all the little Antlets in the nice picture book Mother will show him. Here’s a little Antlet that got hurt just like you. Such a naughty little Antlet that ran away from his dear mother and brothers and sisters once upon a time, and fell down a terrible hill, and bumped both his knees on his frontest legs, and tore his best clothes! Oh, my, my! Look at him, and see how he is crying! And here he[Pg 90] is in another picture, trying to get home to dear Mother, and here she is coming after him and picking him up, and here—”

But Anthony Ant had to stop that minute thinking about all that, for it made that lump so big that the tears were all ready to tumble down from the tear places in his eyes. How the whole family would laugh at him if he let cuddly thoughts turn him into a baby and send him back home like a silly coward! He would stick to the doctor’s prescription whatever happened, for even his mother, who never had let him go off alone before, had smiled at the prescription and had helped him get ready to go.

Sometimes something from a lunch basket is the very best thing to keep down a lump in the throat, for often things seem much worse when the[Pg 91] stomach is empty. Anthony Ant, therefore, put salve and bandages and liniment on his worst hurts, and then sat down on the flat part of the great stone and opened his lunch basket.

Another lump almost came up into his throat at sight of the pink Japanese napkins and dainty things, for it made him think of those kind friends he might never see again. But he took a sandwich right away. The minute he had swallowed a mouthful both the lumps had gone, and by the time he had eaten the things suitable for a whole breakfast he was as cheerful as any Ant could have been far away from home. He found that the lunch basket had been wiped clean from any grit, and the jar that had held the honey his mother had put in was washed clean and filled with a rich cheese made from goodness-knows-what, for it was a secret dainty[Pg 92] of the Wild-Rose Tea House and was not given away to everyone.

After breakfast Anthony felt better. He even whistled a little tune, called “All on a Sunny Morning.” He made up his mind to several sensible things. One was that he would not travel too hard and fast that day. Another was that he would try to find something to eat before his lunch basket was empty. Another was that he would not let anything make him forget to keep both his lunch basket and his dressing case with him where they would be safe. The last thing was that he would make the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two proud they had met him, by really always being as polite as he had seemed to them to be, for well he knew that he was not always so kind and mannerly.

The next thing was to cross to the right bank of the brook, and this was not[Pg 93] easy. The water was swift and deep, and he must wait for something to float down.

Many odd bits of floating things passed him, but at last came a round bit of branch broken from some tree, and it stuck in the narrow channel between the big stone and the next one. It was so unsteady, though, that Anthony Ant strapped both his lunch basket and his dressing case to his belt before crossing the wobbly bridge, and he nearly fell off three times before the trip across was made. There was a shallow place beyond this next stone, and he found he could get around it and over the shallowest parts of it on stones and gravel that partly choked the brook there. One more deep place stood between him and the bank, and then a willow branch bobbed in the breeze and brushed the stone upon which he stood. [Pg 95]The next time it bobbed down he took firm hold of it and pulled himself up. The remainder of the journey was easy, for there is nothing easier for a smooth pathway for Ants than willow branches, and on this fine floorway Anthony Ant climbed into the tree and down its trunk to the ground.

He nearly fell off three times before the trip across was made

Another cheerful thing happened then, for he spied a bush near the willow tree. On the bush a number of large black Ants were trying to take home a large Bug they had killed. Maybe you never heard of it, but there is a law among Ants that any Bug, whoever kills it, belongs to as many Ants as can get any of it. So Anthony Ant felt he had as much right to some of the Bug as they had, and he boldly marched up to get a piece.

It was such a good Bug that none of the black Ants wanted to lose a morsel[Pg 96] of it, and they boxed Anthony Ant’s ears and bit at him and said things to him that no polite Ant would say whether he were a black Ant or a red one. But Anthony was brave and spry in spite of his bruises, and he skipped in between the Ants and dodged their cuffings so well that he managed to pull off a large piece of Bug—enough for several meals. Without waiting to hear any of their rude remarks, he ran with it down the bush and hid behind a rock, where he rested and took the time to break the Bug into pieces of a size to fit into his basket. It gave him a comfortable feeling to know that his lunch basket once more was as heavy as it had been when he first left home.

There was no woods on this side of the brook in this spot, but an open field of short grass. It would be a good change from dark thick trees, he thought,[Pg 97] and much more cheerful, and after lunch he started off toward the right, and left the brook behind him. He might meet adventures in the middle of the field, he thought.

Long before he reached the middle of the field, however, an Ant Venture happened, for as he pressed forward through a dense part of the grass he came suddenly upon a large hole—a vast cave it seemed to him—and over the cave was a sign which said:

Molesworth Deep Mining Company,
Limited

Anthony Ant sat down on a small pebble to think about that sign and what it might mean. Was it a sort of side-show cave in there, or was it a real mine that went down into the black, dark earth farther than any Ants ever had dug? Whichever it was, it was a strange thing to come across here in the field. He thought he would wait and see if there were any signs of life about the place.

There were! The signs of life came all too soon. Something pushed him off the pebble so suddenly that he did not know what it was. It was large and soft and dark. He knew that much about how it first seemed. In a second he was standing on all his feet and looking to see what the thing was.

[Pg 99]

“What’s the matter? Were you looking for a job?” came a deep, soft voice.

“No, sir,” replied Anthony Ant, looking up at what the voice seemed to come from. Before him was a velvety creature like a mouse, maybe, all but its head and nose and eyes, and sort of different about its feet. “I was just thinking about that sign and what it might mean.”

“I’ll tell you that free of charge,” said the voice. “There you see one of the most wonderful mines in the whole world. I live there, and I helped make it, so I ought to know.”

“What do you get out of it?” asked Anthony Ant, for he had seen pictures in the books at home about mines and had heard how gold, and iron, and coal, and that sort of thing came out of them.

“Why,” answered the voice, “I get a home out of it. What more should you[Pg 100] want, I’d like to know? If you mean what do I bring out of it, I bring out or push out the earth. I am teaching the little ones how to do it now, so they can be smart when they grow up. They are quick to learn and know so much that I have just put up that sign.”

“But if it is not a real mine where you get metals or minerals to sell, why should you need a sign?” asked the Ant.

“Well,” said the soft, deep voice, “it looks stylish, I think. I don’t know of any other reason.”

“But you haven’t any eyes, have you?” questioned the Ant. “I can’t see any, at least not from here. So how do you know it looks stylish?”

Then the little creature put his head down near Anthony Ant, and showed him such bright little eyes where they did not show much that the brightness made Anthony blink.

[Pg 101]

“I am a Mole,” said a soft, deep voice

“I am a Mole,” said that soft, deep voice, “and I am not so blind as the world thinks. I never could have made so fine a place as Molesworth Hall if I[Pg 102] had been really blind, you know. Now, could I?”

“I should be better able to answer that question if I had seen your home inside, but all I’ve seen is the entrance,” replied the Ant.

“That’s so,” said the Mole.

“But,” asked Anthony, “what do you have the word ‘Limited’ on your sign for?”

“It seems to be the style with some big advertisers in the newspapers,” answered the Mole. “That’s the only reason, for when you come right down to the matter there is nothing limited about my home. I could make my halls as big as I chose if I wanted to work long enough. I could tunnel across the whole field if I wished, but ‘Limited’ looks stylish and grand on a sign, I think.”

“But were you expecting others to dig in your mines?” asked Anthony. “You[Pg 103] asked me if I was looking for a job, you know.”

“Of course I did,” said Mr. Mole. “Everyone worth while has a job of some sort, and you looked worth while. But you were sitting doing nothing when I found you, so I thought you were out of luck and had lost your job, whatever it was. Though you are pretty small, I could give you something to do to earn your supper at least.”

“But I have my supper in my lunch basket,” said Anthony.

“Let me see it,” demanded Mr. Mole. So the Ant opened his basket.

“Now, look here,” said the Mole, “there isn’t a thing in here that won’t keep all right for tomorrow. So keep it for tomorrow if you are wise, and just buck up—as they say in the newspapers I find blown into this field sometimes—buck up, I say, and be a man,[Pg 104] and do a few hours’ work for me, and earn your supper. Save that lunch for the tomorrow that may find you hard up for food that is not always to be had for the wishing.”

“Very well,” agreed the Ant, “and thank you. What is the work?”

“We are running a short gallery through a little section of Molesworth Hall,” said Mr. Mole, “and, though you are small and cannot carry much at a time, the short gallery is near the entrance and you won’t have far to tramp. You look like a good digger, and the earth is soft. Even if you won’t be much of a help to me, I’m glad to offer you a good supper for what you carry out before then.”

“All right,” said the Ant, and followed the Mole into the cave.

Inside, he met Mrs. Mole and the little Moles, and they were kind to him[Pg 105] and showed him the wonderful passageways of Molesworth Hall. Then they scurried off to their work, and the Ant began to labor where he was taken by Mr. Mole.

Now Anthony Ant was too battered and sore to feel much like working. He felt lame all over, and the bumps and bruises were pretty bad. But it would never do to let Mr. Mole think him somebody not worth while, so he never rested once from the time he started. Mr. Mole, who, unknown to Anthony Ant, was watching him all the time from around the corner of the main passage, and who had guessed that the Ant had run away from a good home for some foolish reason, had to smile to see how plucky the little chap was.

It was a pretty weary Ant that took out his last load that night and then washed up outside the cave. The dew[Pg 106] was already on the grass, and the cool wetness of it felt good when he washed his face and all his hands. When he was clean enough to suit himself, he went in and found Mr. and Mrs. Mole and the little Moles eating supper. They helped him to bits of roots Mrs. Mole had prepared some way or other, and a sip of herb tea rested him a lot. They told him he was welcome to stay all night too, but he thanked them and said he thought he would go a little farther on his way. So they went to the door with him and said good night in their soft, deep voices, and wished him luck, and the last they saw of him, he was looking back and waving. The last he saw of them, they made a happy, contented family picture as they all stood together in the doorway of the Molesworth Deep-Mining Company, Limited.

Poor, tired Anthony Ant did not get so far away from Molesworth Hall that night as he thought he would before stopping to sleep, and when he finally did stop he had a most terrible night.

At first he walked as far as he thought he ought to for the time, and looked about for a something or other that might make a good bed. There was a fine little clump of sweet fern, and he thought he would tuck himself up in one of the fragrant leaves of it where he ought to rest happily and safely all night. He unstrapped his dressing case and lunch basket and hunted up his toothbrush, and with the dew and his Marsh-Mint Dental Cream he brushed his teeth as carefully as though his mother were there to see him. You[Pg 108] know that any Ant that never forgets to brush his teeth with dew and Marsh-Mint Dental Cream night and morning will not have to go to the dentist for many a day. He had learned it was always safer to hang on to his things, so he took good care to have them where he could grab the handles of basket and case in a hurry. Then he climbed into a dry leaf of sweet fern near the ground.

Now, in the field there was a fine band concert going on. All the zoomers, and the buzzoons, and the zippers, and the drummerinos, and flutes, and zingers, and violins, and the other instruments were going hard and fast. Such a grand lullaby you never heard before, and the moonlight was enough to make any Fairy that ever lived in a fairy ring want to get out there and dance to the music. Anthony Ant thought he was going to have a fine sleep, and was just[Pg 109] closing his eyes for the next to the last blink before really dropping to sleep, when something moved near him and made him grab his things and run away trembling for all he was worth. Maybe it was not a thing that would hurt him at all, but he thought it was and he would not look back to see what the thing was that moved.

Then he crawled under a dry leaf on the ground. He had slept safely enough under dry leaves before, and now his heart stopped beating so hard. He was about to sleep after all, when some night creature of the field stepped on the edge of the leaf and pinched poor Anthony so hard he had to squeal in spite of himself. The creature passed on, but Anthony Ant got out from under that leaf as fast as ever he could.

After standing as long as he could on his tired feet, he sat down on a tiny[Pg 110] stick and leaned back against the stem of a weed. Anything might come along and step on him, and that very instant he had to dodge, for a Bat swooped down too near the ground in his mad fluttering in the air, knocked the stem of the weed flat with his big wing, and scared the Ant more than ever.

Shaking with fright, the Ant hid under the edge of a big stone and did not dare to move. If he were only at home now in Ant-Hill Manor where always there was a little night-light burning in an outer gallery so that little Ants that woke up in the night were not frightened when they saw the light, but knew they were safe at home all right! The moonlight was bright, to be sure, but out here in the big world it was too bright, and too blue-iferous, if you know what that word means. This blue-iferousness made such awful shadows of things that might[Pg 111] catch you if they saw you. He was too scared now ever to sleep that night, he knew.

So he huddled himself into a forlorn little ball near the outer edge of the stone, for he did not know what might be back under it, and there he stayed, and listened to every horrible, creepy sound, and watched every scary, moving shadow until all at once a nice smooth voice said, “Why, you poor little thing! What is the matter?”

The Ant saw that what he had thought was a goblin shadow, or something more than just plain awful and horrible Night, was one of those soothing August Croakers he had heard at the band concert near the brook. The pale green insect was resting awhile on a grass stalk.

“O sir,” answered Anthony Ant, “the Night is a terrible thing! I am so scared[Pg 112] my teeth just won’t keep from clattering together. Hear them?”

“Oh, yes, I hear them all right,” said the August Croaker. “I have been listening for some time till I could be sure what made the funny noise. Then I found it was your teeth. Now, look here! There never was anything more wonderful than Night in all the world, and never will be. It can’t hurt you a bit, but because nobody who is as afraid as you are, ever can be reasoned into thinking so, I will give you a pass to keep in sight wherever you go.”

“What is that?” asked Anthony.

“Here it is,” said the August Croaker, holding out a slip of grass blade with queer marks on it. “A pass is something that you show and it takes you in free at a show. Now Night is a wonderful show. This is a pass to carry with you, and it will take you safely through[Pg 113] any hour of the Night without letting a thing hurt you. It makes you go free of scares, you see. So long as you keep it in plain sight, you are all right. Try it.”

“Oh, thank you!” cried Anthony Ant, as he fastened the pass under the strap of his dressing case. And the minute the pass was in place he felt as brave as a large Lion, Size Eighty-one.

“Now,” said the August Croaker, “lie right down where you are. Even if there should be a whole menagerie behind you in the shadows of the stone, not a thing can hurt you. The words on the pass will see to that. Go to sleep now while I sing you my best lullaby on the G string.” And he began a soft “G,G,G,G,G,G,G,” with a sort of trill in it, that was most soothing.

“What are the words on the pass?” asked Anthony Ant sleepily.

[Pg 114]

“They are written in Japanese style, sort of,” said the August Croaker. “That is, you have to read them up and down instead of across, and they say:

“Oh, my, but what a lovely dream I had!” cried the Ant the next morning as he woke up bright and early. He thought he was still talking to the August Croaker, but found he was alone after all, as the August Croaker had gone off to take his sleep because he was on night duty, you see, every night.

There was the pass, anyway, Anthony Ant saw as he gathered his things together and came out from under the stone. He took his morning bath in dewdrops, and, smelling sweet from the scent of the Marsh-Mint Dental Cream and the Meadow-Scent Soap, he perched himself on a low grass blade and ate some of the luncheon in his basket. As he intended taking a long tramp on his way that morning, he even ate a small[Pg 116] piece of the Bug he had run away with, for, though at home he did not eat meat for breakfast, he knew that for a long, hard tramp there was nothing like meat to give one strength.

Then, when all ready for the march, he looked at the sun to be sure he was starting in the right pathway, and off he went over a blade and under a blade; over a stone and across a plain space; and under a stick; and up a weed; and down a branch of the weed to another weed; and on to a daisy and down the daisy; and along a leaf to the tip; and over to a clover stem; and up the clover stem; and over to a high grass; and along the high grass to a bush; and down the bush to the ground; and along the ground to a rock; and up the rock and over the rock and down the rock; and across a dandelion; and up a burdock; and on to a big bowlder and[Pg 117] over the big bowlder and down the big bowlder; and up a high goldenrod to the top; and over to another goldenrod top; and down that goldenrod stem to the ground; and along the ground to a berry bush. My, but that was a long tramp to take without a rest between times!

As long a tramp as that was, he was not too tired to climb the bush when all at once he saw a berry above his head, high up ever so far. Up he went hard and fast, for nothing would taste so good that very minute as some berry juice, he thought. So up the bush went Anthony Ant of Ant-Hill Manor until he came to the branch that had the berry on it—and, oh me, oh my! Sometimes things are better than they seem to be, just as sometimes things are not so bad as they look. Why! Not only was there one berry on that branch, but[Pg 118] under some leaves, hidden from his first glance, were more berries—just loads of them—and they were even more juicy than the berry he went up the bush to get!

Well, sir, Anthony Ant danced a jig of joy on a leaf before he tasted a berry at all. Then he sat down—where do you think?—not near a berry—no, sir-ee!—but on it, for the berry was a large, fat blackberry with plenty of room on top for more than one Ant. He was the only one there, so all the room was his. All he had to do was to sit there on the firm, smooth, warm berry heated from the sun to the very core, and bite into one of the pulpy balls that covered the seeds of the berry. So up he climbed to the top of the berry, and, for fear he might lose his things, he strapped them to his belt instead of setting them down anywhere. A lucky thing it was, for no[Pg 119] sooner had he begun to bite into the berry, and to think how lovely that juice was, than all at once something pounced down to the bush while he had his nose to the berry and could not look up so well. The next thing he knew, he was being carried through the air at a great rate—berry and all—until he was plumped down upon the wide branch of a great tree ever so far away from the berry bush.

If the Ant had been scared by such a harmless thing as Night, he was about twenty million more times scared now that this thing had happened to him. Besides, whatever it was that had carried him to the tree had so nipped into the berry that the juice had spattered all over poor Anthony Ant, and he was sticky from head to foot. However, he stayed perfectly still without moving the fraction of an inch. He was afraid[Pg 120] the thing that had carried him there would eat him if he so much as wiggled a feeler.

The Robin was wondering what to do about Anthony Ant

After what seemed to him a long time he opened one eye he had closed, and there he saw a large Robin looking at him. Now, Robins like Worms, but they do not care for Ants, and the Robin was wondering what to do about Anthony Ant. Just now berry was the taste he was after, and here was Mr. Ant in the way.

[Pg 121]

Anthony Ant saw that look in the Robin’s eye, so he knew it was time to move. As fast as he could, he jumped off the berry and ran back under a piece of loose bark on the tree where he was safe from Robins, anyway.

The Robin was now at work on the berry. He pecked it and poked it on that broad flat part of the big branch, and he ate seeds, and all the large pieces of berry he pulled off. But some of the berry slid into a knot hole, and Mr. Robin did not get the whole berry after all. He soon flew away—perhaps back to that same bush where the berry grew and where he hoped to find another.

When Anthony Ant had waited in his safe place a long time and found that the Robin did not come back to the branch, it seemed all right to come out of the bark hiding place for a look at the world from that spot.

[Pg 122]

Oh, but he was far, far away from the ground now! Even high bushes did not make him dizzy, but this high tree almost did. He shut his eyes a second and then took another look. This time he could keep them open without feeling shivers up and down his spine, so he sat down to think. First of all, though, before he could make any plans, he had to get the sticky juice off, and it seemed to Anthony Ant that he never had done so much scrubbing in his life. A lucky thing it was for him that he had strapped his things on good and tight, for he was glad enough now to have all the things in his little case. As well as he could without any water, he scraped and rubbed and polished himself as he had been taught, and as his wash cloth was still rather wet from the last washing he had taken that morning he managed very well indeed.

[Pg 123]

There were little drops of juice the Robin had spattered where he poked at the berry. These Anthony Ant drank up right away, and then thought of the knot hole where the remainder of the berry had rolled. He ran to look, and, sure enough, there it was! The Robin’s bill could not possibly have reached it, but nothing was easier than for Anthony Ant to go into the hole after the berry, so into the hole he went.

He tugged and he pulled, and he pulled and he tugged, and by and by he had the berry—all that was left of it—out on the flat part of the branch where he could eat it comfortably. Ho! After all, this was not so bad. It was lovely up in the tree, and almost as good as a picnic to be sitting there with nothing to do but to smell the nice air that mixed with the sweet scent of the berry juice. If only the Ladybug and the small[Pg 124] Spider, Size Two could be there also! He opened his lunch basket and took out a piece of plain bread—plain all but its shape, for it was cut in a wild-rose shape. This he dipped into the berry juice and ate it in peace—that is, he ate in peace for awhile, but not for long, for as he glanced along the branch he saw two great eyes looking at him from what looked like a mountain of fur!

It is no wonder that poor Anthony Ant thought this world was just nothing but one scare after another. He seemed always to be grabbing at his things to save them and running off somewhere. Now he clutched at his basket and case and dashed under that loose piece of bark so fast that he dropped a sandwich. But he was thankful to get away after any fashion.

The great mountain of fur came slowly along the branch, and as the Ant watched he saw the mountain of fur had an enormous brushlike tail. Then he knew the thing was a Squirrel, and, however bad a Squirrel might be, it did not eat Ants, anyway. But it had feet and might step on Anthony, so the Ant kept under cover to see what happened.

[Pg 126]

The Squirrel did not speak

The Squirrel did not speak, but went along the branch and gave a jump to another branch so far away that the Ant held his breath, thinking the Squirrel surely must have fallen. But not at all! Mr. Squirrel was safe and sound over[Pg 127] on the other side of the tree before you could say his name, almost.

Then the Ant tried coming out once more, and this time he ate the sandwich he had dropped and a little more of the berry. Then he thought it might be a long time before he found another berry bush again, so he left the remainder of the berry to dry in the sun, since dried berries can be easily packed to carry, and there is no danger of juice getting over the other things in the basket. The taste is sweet for a long time too.

Anthony Ant thought he would better see what a tree was like now that he was in one, and after he had explored it he could go down to the ground and off around the remainder of the world. It would save time to see this tree now, and he would not have to climb another. One tree must be more or less like all the others. So he tried one branch after[Pg 128] another. If he had thought he was alone in that tree after the Robin and the Squirrel had left it, he was very much mistaken. It was full of people—or rather, creatures.

The first one he met was a yellow Caterpillar different from any he had seen before. After that he saw a small Measuring Worm that tries to measure everything it travels over, inch by inch. Inchworm is its other name. Then came a funny Bug that looked at him out of the corners of his eyes in such a queer way that Anthony Ant knew it would be no use to try to talk to him, as the Bug did not look like one that wanted to talk to any one. Then came a branch with a lot of tiny red Spiders not much of any size at all. They were friendly enough and asked him to play tag with them, but he had no wish to play with them, as he was afraid he might step[Pg 129] on some of them or knock them off the branch, and that would never do!

As Anthony Ant walked out on one of the leafiest branches of all, he saw where the Robin had once lived, for there was a large nest. He knew it at once by the pictures of nests his mother had shown him when he was a tiny baby Ant.

No one was at home in this nest. The young birds had been hatched many weeks before, and learned to fly, and were too big to have to be cuddled in nests any more. It was interesting to see a real nest, anyway, and the Ant began to think he had learned enough so far on his trip to make a book good enough for schools.

He was feeling pretty puffed up at being so smart, when all at once another thing happened to make him forget everything but running off to hide again.[Pg 130] There was the worst hammering under him you could think of. Anthony Ant just scuttered up to a higher twig right away and peeked down.

“Tap, tap, tap!” went the noise, and my! It was nothing but another Bird. This one had the red on his head instead of on his breast like Mr. Robin. Since Anthony Ant knew that this hammering Bird was a Woodpecker and hunted for Grubs and Bugs in tree trunks, he crawled out on to the stem of a leaf where there was no chance for a big Bird to light, and just hid in a fold of the leaf until the Woodpecker flew away.

The next thing that Anthony Ant found was something that made him give a glad cry. It was a tiny green Worm—the very sort his mother had sent him after lots of times to get for the larder. This would be food for him[Pg 131] for many meals, and, since Worms do not just walk into your lunch basket when you tell them to, Anthony watched his chance, gave a spring, and caught the small green Worm as Ants have been taught to catch small green Worms since Ants and Worms were made. Though it seems cruel, it really was one of the things not cruel at all, and Anthony Ant had a good supply of food for his journey for one while.

All the remainder of the day Anthony explored the great tree. Never had he dreamed there could be so many things in one tree before. It was like a big garden and menagerie and shop and city besides. Why, you could get almost anything you wanted in the tree! He found that some Ants that looked a bit different from his own family, and from any other Ants he had seen, were living there in the soft inner wood of the trunk,[Pg 132] and not wishing any better sort of home than that. They seemed rather friendly and asked him to stop to see their colony.

“We must be sort of cousins,” said one of them, stopping in his work, “and I’ll look in our photograph album right away and see if we have your picture in it. Come into the parlor.”

Anthony went inside, but the place had a stuffy, woodeny, musty smell to him, and he was quite sure he would not like to be a tree Ant and have to live there.

They looked over the album, and oh me, oh my! There seemed to be no end to the cousins those tree Ants had! There were pictures of baby Ants, and growing-up Ants, and grown-up Ants. There were Ants photographed each alone, and with other Ants in groups; pictures of Ants at picnics, and at school,[Pg 133] Ants in graduating classes, and at golf and tennis and baseball, and swimming, and fishing, and going abroad, and in the company of other notable Ants, “reading from left to right,” and all that sort of thing—but never a picture of any Ant like Anthony Ant, nor like any of his family and their own cousins.

“Nope,” said the tree Ant. “I’m afraid you don’t belong to us at all. But have some supper with us, anyway. We’d like to hear about other Ants that are not like us. It would be a pleasant change.”

So Anthony Ant stayed to supper and found, at any rate, they had a good cook, and the salad of cold boiled Dragon Fly was delicious.

Then the Ant said good-by and went out upon the tree highway again. He wanted to collect the dried berry for his lunch basket, and it might take some[Pg 134] time to find where he had left it, as he had traveled pretty nearly all over the tree.

He found it before the twilight came, and, as it was too late to think of traveling far on the ground that night, he made up his mind to stay up in the tree until morning. The berry was not quite dry enough to pack, anyhow. So he crawled out of sight under the loose piece of bark where he had hidden from the Robin, and thought the morning sun would dry the berry in plenty of time for him to have it by the time he was ready to go down the tree.

When an Owl in plain sight called out, “Hoot!”
Anthony smiled

It had been a busy day, and he was glad to settle himself early for a night’s sleep. Mr. Bat, coming out from a hollow in the tree, swooped close to Anthony Ant, but Anthony only smiled, and when an Owl in plain sight called out, “Hoot!” Anthony smiled again, and [Pg 135]of course you know it was because he had the pass that said:

The first thing to be done in the morning was to pack up what was left of the berry, of course. After his long sleep, and a scrubbing at a dew basin in a hollow of a leaf, and a good breakfast of some of the things in his lunch basket, the Ant felt ready to walk miles. So he packed up the dried berry and started down the tree, eager to be off over the field again and to see some more of the world.

For a wide space under the tree the traveling was easy, for the ground was fairly smooth and not cluttered up with things to be climbed over and under. But that soon came to an end, and the same sort of trip he had taken yesterday, when he went over and under, and down and up things all the time, had to be[Pg 137] taken again for a long distance. This might be the way the entire journey around the world would be, for all he knew.

Everywhere along the way the whole field was busy with life. Everyone was working busily, and not one creature he met was sitting idle. Half of the ones he met did not so much as see him, they were so busy, and the other half took time merely to look at him, or to say, “Good-morning!” in such a hurry that they hardly knew they were saying it.

One old Grasshopper, however, stopped his cutting of a grass stem for a minute. “What!” exclaimed the Grasshopper. “Do you mean to tell me you are going off for a picnic, you young rascal? You ought to be at home working with your family. You are a bad boy, sir! The very idea! I never heard of such a thing! If you were my son, I should[Pg 138] have to give you such a whipping that it would be a long time before you would forget it. What is the matter with you? Are you lame or anything?”

“No, sir,” answered Anthony Ant, rather frightened at the Grasshopper’s cross voice. “I am not going to a picnic, and I am not lame, either.”

“Then tell me, why aren’t you at home working?”

Well, of course, you know Anthony Ant had to tell all about his reason for leaving home, and at the mere mention of Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug the old Grasshopper put back his head and laughed so hard that he almost spilled a large drop of molasses out of his mouth.

“Well,” said he, when he could stop laughing long enough to speak, “I’ll let you go without the whipping. You won’t need it, for, if Dr. Bug has prescribed that trip for you, you won’t need[Pg 139] any punishment from me. His will be quite enough. His dose will be stiff enough to fix you!” And he went on laughing so hard that the Ant thought the old Grasshopper must be crazy.

“Look here, son!” cried the Grasshopper

“Look here, son!” cried the Grasshopper, stopping his laugh quickly when he saw the Ant was about to run away in disgust. “Now don’t be angry. Only foolish fellows get angry at nothing at[Pg 140] all. That is a piece of advice worth pasting in your hat: Don’t get angry at nothing at all, and don’t get angry at anything!”

“I haven’t any hat,” said Anthony Ant sulkily.

“So I have noticed,” said the Grasshopper. “Where is it? Did you run so fast away from work that you did not stop even to put on your hat? You must be a Gubblechook! And yet you took time to get your lunch basket and other things, I notice. You don’t look much like a Gubblechook, either—not yet, anyway.”

“What is a Gubblechook?” asked the Ant.

“A Gubblechook,” replied the Grasshopper, “is a fellow who is afraid of work—so afraid of it that even if he could see the shadow of it coming around a corner he would run and hide where[Pg 141] he could not see it. You can always tell a Gubblechook when you see one too.”

“How?” asked the Ant.

“Oh, by his looks,” said the Grasshopper. “He begins to look sort of gubbly and chooky after awhile. His eyes lose their shine that is better than Fireflies’ sparks. His mouth droops like a withered squash blossom. His hair falls around over his face and flops in strings around his ears. His tongue hangs out after awhile. His nose points down for keeps, and he ends by sleeping forever and ever, and then seven more forevers besides. If you don’t look out, you’ll be a Gubblechook before long. Better paste this in your hat too: Don’t be afraid of work! It is the only thing that will keep you from turning into a Gubblechook, you’d better believe! But where is your hat?”

[Pg 142]

“A Field Mouse ate it,” answered the Ant.

The Grasshopper laughed harder than ever.

“That isn’t a joke!” said Anthony Ant with a pout.

“Well, I should think not!” exclaimed the Grasshopper. “Hats don’t grow on every bush these days, I can tell you! But, just to show you I am not making fun of you and that I really want you to be something better than a Gubblechook, I’ll make you a present of as nice a hat as you ever had in your life.”

The Ant was ashamed of himself. “I could not take it,” said he. “Besides, Mother would not think I ought to take it when I can’t pay for it, I know.”

“Nonsense!” said the Grasshopper. “She’d let you earn it, though, wouldn’t she?”

“Well, yes,” the Ant answered.

[Pg 143]

“All right, then,” said the Grasshopper. “Let me see if you have forgotten how to work. First, I’ll show you the hat to let you know I am honest when I say it is the best one you ever had—or I should say, the best you can have, for of course you have not had it yet.”

From a swinging grass back of him the Grasshopper brought out a hat that would exactly fit Anthony Ant, and it was made of the finest straw to be had in the whole wide field. It certainly was a beauty!

“Now,” the Grasshopper went on, “I want a certain hollow under a stone made a little deeper or wider or something, so I can get in and out better. That stone covers my favorite rest room, but the hollow is too small for me to wiggle into and out of easily. Here is a shovel.”

[Pg 144]

Well, sir, Anthony gave his basket and case into the Grasshopper’s care, and went at the job for all he was worth. By and by he had the hollow big enough so that when the Grasshopper tried it the size was the very thing.

“I can see that you are still able to keep the name of Anthony Ant of Ant-Hill Manor,” said the Grasshopper. “It is a pity to let your good strong muscles get flabby. A Gubblechook’s muscles always do, you know. So not only am I going to give you the hat, but I am going to give you two pieces of advice all pasted in, into the bargain. Look inside the hat.”

Anthony Ant looked inside. The Grasshopper was not a Gubblechook, anyway, for he had worked hard to make the fine lettering of the words, and he had taken much pains with the hatband he had made himself.

[Pg 145]

Anthony read the words inside the hat:

“Don’t Get Angry at Nothing at All, and Don’t Get Angry at Anything! Don’t Be Afraid of Work!”

He thanked the Grasshopper, took his hat and put it on, and, with basket and case, marched on once more over and under the scenery.

The afternoon was at its hottest when Anthony Ant next stopped for a rest. There was such a fine mossy stone in the shadow of a thick clump of weeds that it made the very place to camp out for awhile.

He took off his new hat and placed it carefully where no Field Mouse could get it. He was a pretty wise Ant now, he thought, for he had learned a few things in his tramp, and one was that Field Mice and hats are not to be trusted together if you ever want to see the hats again. Then he tasted some of the dried berry and took a little nip at the Worm he had caught in the tree, and found his sandwiches were nearly gone. There would be about enough to last him for his supper, and then he would have to[Pg 147] get on as well as he could without sandwiches. His cheese was nearly gone too. What a good time they had had at that Wild-Rose Tea House—they three! He and the small Spider, Size Two and the Ladybug had been such very good friends.

“Hello!” said a voice suddenly. “What on earth are you doing there eating such nice things all alone?”

Anthony Ant was never more surprised in his life! There sat a Firefly. You would not have guessed it to look at him, for there was not a bit of fire showing anywhere about him. The Ant knew him as a Firefly, though, because his mother had told him all about Fireflies when he was a little boy.

“It’s all I’ve got to eat,” said the Ant in answer to the Firefly’s question. “But I’ll give you a taste of anything you want, just the same.”

[Pg 148]

“You speak as though there wasn’t any more food to be had in the world,” said the Firefly. “Your voice sounded so solemn.”

“It’s all I’ve got to eat,” said the Ant

“Well, if you hadn’t any more food except what was in your lunch basket, I guess your voice would sound solemn, too,” replied the Ant.

“It would not!” declared the Firefly very firmly. “Why should it, when there[Pg 149] is plenty of food in the world? Just because your lunch basket is empty at times, is no reason for feeling solemn. If there was a famine, that would be different, but there is food all about you.”

“Yes, but you have to go catch it,” the Ant whined.

“Well, why not?” asked the Firefly.

Anthony Ant was about to say it was too hard work to have to go catch your food all the time, when he suddenly thought maybe the Firefly would call him a Gubblechook if he did not look out, so he kept still.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Firefly. “Don’t you know how to catch food?”

“Mercy, yes!” cried Anthony. “Look in my basket. I caught that.” And he pointed with one of his feelers to the little green Worm.

[Pg 150]

“Let’s see,” demanded the Firefly, and he peeked into the basket.

“Have a piece,” said Anthony Ant. “You’ll find it very fine and tender and juicy.”

“No, thanks,” replied the Firefly, “but I’ll taste this fancy pink cake, if you want me to.”

“Do!” said Anthony. “Take the whole of it!”

“Oh!” said the Firefly, as he took the cake. “Where have I seen and tasted such cakes before? Oh, I know! You must have been to the Wild-Rose Tea House!”

“Yes,” said Anthony, “that is where all but the dried berry and the Worm came from. Have you been there?”

“Often,” answered the Firefly. “I always stop there on my way home from a band concert at night for a little cake or two and a cup of Wild-Rose Berry[Pg 151] Coffee. They make a specialty of that coffee there, and there is nothing like it to rest a person after an evening’s flitting. I flitted nearly every evening of June, and pretty nearly all of July, without missing a night, lighting up things with my lantern. But now I go only occasionally, for the season for flitting is nearly over for us, and we are spending our time on vacations a bit for a rest from our hard season. This cake is delicious and is my favorite sort. You were wise to pick out this kind of cake. It is the best they make there.”

“I didn’t pick it out,” said the Ant, and told how his friends had taken him there, and also all about the way he had left home.

“Maybe you were sick,” suggested the Firefly, who seemed really kind-hearted and not one who would lecture him for not working. “You know that work is[Pg 152] such an old sort of thing, that it was invented when the world was made, and everybody works at something or other always, whether it is hard work or more the kind of work one would rather do. So any one who suddenly, like you, does not want to work, nor even help bring in the family’s food, must be sick—not sick enough to go to bed, probably, nor to take medicine out of a bottle, perhaps, but just sick enough so that if he does not have a change he may be sick in bed. Anyhow, I’d keep at Dr. Beetle Bug’s prescription long enough to find out how it works—for even prescriptions have to work, you see!” And he laughed a cheerful laugh at the joke he had made.

“How can I tell when the prescription has worked enough?” asked Anthony, for here was some one worth meeting. He seemed to know all about things.

[Pg 153]

“Well,” said the Firefly, “do you feel that if you were at home now, this very minute, you would be glad to work hard all day as the others do?”

“No!” cried the Ant.

“And are you lonesome for your mother and the others in the family?”

“Well, ye-es,” said Anthony Ant slowly. “It would be nice to see them, but I do not have to cry yet because I can’t see them.”

“How about nights?” asked the Firefly. “Do you wake up in the night and feel scared, and wish your mother were there, and all that sort of thing?”

“Well, I’m not so scared since I had the pass, you see, though I do sometimes wish I was where Mother could talk to me.”

“I don’t think you’re ready to give up your trip yet,” declared the Firefly, “but the way to know is to ask yourself all[Pg 154] those questions every day. Then when the time comes that you think there is nothing finer than a good, long, honest, hard day’s work, and you are so lonesome you’d give anything you had to see Mother, and the lump in your throat, which sometimes gets too big to keep you from choking out loud almost, really does make you choke out loud—then you may know that the doctor’s prescription has worked enough, and you are cured, and can go home and live happily ever after, just as Fairies do in stories.”

“I’ve had lumps in my throat several times,” Anthony Ant told the Firefly, “but I’ve swallowed them. And it did seem sort of nice to carry out earth again when I was working for the Grasshopper, but I might not like to carry earth all day as I used to, and I’m sure I’m not crazy about hunting even my own next meal.”

[Pg 155]

“Oh, then don’t think of giving up the cure yet!” said the Firefly. “If you give up cures too soon, you often become worse than before you tried them.”

“Oh, thank you!” cried Anthony Ant. “Now suppose I should have all those feelings before I got all the way around the world. Shall I keep on, or go home at once?”

“You won’t need my answer on that question,” said the Firefly, “for you will just know, and when any one just knows, he never has to be told. You may be sure you will do the right thing without the advice of any one. Thank you for the cake—especially since you soon will have to do a little work to fill your lunch basket again. I hope we meet again some time. I want to know how this cure business comes out. Good-by!” And off he sailed through the warm air.

Oh, my, my, my! If ever Anthony Ant thought the cure had worked, it was the very next morning! The rain was pouring more like a Niagara Falls than a plain, hard shower, and he just had to grab his things and run into a horrid, dark, toadstooly-smelling log where anything might live, and anything might happen to him, too. There was not another place to go unless he ran into an Angleworm’s hole, and he had had all he wanted to do with Angleworms for one while. The rain swished and swooshed and bliffed and bluffed so against things and on them that it was not safe to stay under a leaf, nor under most stones however far the hollows went under them. He would have been drowned.

[Pg 157]

Away back in the middle of the great, horrible log there was not so much as a drop of rain. At any rate, the log did not leak, even if it was as dark as the darkest cellar and might have things in it. He was lucky not to have gotten his new hat soaked, and he had all his things with him, though there was not much in his lunch basket.

Anthony had to grab his things and run into a dark log

[Pg 158]

He found that all sorts of creatures were gathered in the center of the great log. There were Crickets, and Thousand-legged Worms, and Daddy Long-legs; and little Bugs, and medium-sized Bugs, and big Bugs; and a Toad, and a Lizard, and a green Snake, and a draggled Moth, and a Walking-Stick Insect, and a Snail in a shell, and a Snapping Beetle, and a Berry Bug, and a Katydid; and a funny thing that might have been a Katydidn’t; and an unpleasant, wiggly thing part Bug and part Worm; and a Locust, and a Slug; and goodness knows what else besides. For there were all sorts of things he could not see that wiggled, and twisted, and shoved, and poked, and pushed, and slithered, and slid, and joggled, and the dark made it impossible to see.

Although the place might be full of ladies, Anthony Ant found the safest[Pg 159] way to keep his hat at all was to leave it on his head. So he did, for no one was thinking much of manners, he knew. The only thing any one could think about was getting away from the rain. Why, there were creatures in there that almost always ate each other when out in the open. But here they were glad enough not to think of such a thing, but just to be content with keeping from being killed by the rain.

That was indeed the moment when Anthony Ant would have given everything he had if he could have been safe and sound in Ant-Hill Manor. An awful lump, Size Sixty-seven, got into his throat, and was almost unswallowable! The noise of the rain thumped upon the log until it seemed as though it would pound it all to smithereens or splintereens. And the roar of the wind and the rain together sounded through[Pg 160] the log until you couldn’t think, blink, or wink. There were twenty-seven other noises besides, which the Ant thought he never had heard before.

All at once, whatever light had managed to creep faintly in at one end of the log was blocked out, making that end as black as the blackest night.

“Snoof, snoof, snoof!” said something as big as the log nearly.

The whole company made a dash for the other end of the log, and the rain and wind drove them back, so there they were. If they got out, they would be thumped to pieces by the rain in about half a second. If they stayed in, the awful Snoofer, whatever he was, might trample them to nothing at all. What to do, they didn’t know!

The birthday luncheon

The Snoofer really was a Woodchuck, perfectly friendly, though too big for any of them to get too near in a crowded [Pg 161]place where there was no room for him and them to pass each other.

“Hello, folks!” said he. “Don’t move. Plenty of room. You’re all welcome to Hollow-Log Inn. It’s not fit weather for any of you to get out into, so you stay in. This is an inn, and you’re in, so there you are for a joke worth having. Make yourselves at home.”

Well, at least they were not so frightened after that, though they jolly well knew they would have to look out if he turned around much or came their way.

“Seems good to get in,” said he. “I like my other underground house better than this, but I was caught when I was making a run for it from a long hunt in the woods, and I happened to think Hollow-Log Inn had a better roof than Burrow Hall. Why, I’ll wager Burrow Hall is full of water. If the rain hasn’t[Pg 162] run down through all the entrances, it must have soaked through the ground above the halls by this time and flooded them badly. I hope all of you are all right and none the worse for the big drops, nor for the poundings and bruisings you may have had from it before you came inside.”

Mr. Woodchuck spoke such kind words, which they managed to hear in spite of the thumping of the rain and the roar of the wind, and in spite of all the twenty-seven noises besides, that they knew some one ought to thank him politely.

But, mercy! Who could thank him in all that noise, when their voices were so little and his voice so big? They were sure they could not make him hear, so they bowed politely and smiled. As he could see well in the dark, he knew what they meant, and said he would do all[Pg 163] the talking, and they need not try to answer till the storm was over.

They all bowed again.

“Before I do much talking,” said he, “I’ve got to have a snooze. I’ve been on the go all day, and a little snooze will fix me right up. Maybe the rain and wind will quiet down a little so we can hear ourselves think better by that time.”

Well, sir, the Woodchuck curled himself into a fat ball of wet fur that smelled—well, just like wet fur—and to sleep he went, and not a bit more for the wind, and the rain, and the noise they made, cared he! And he even snored, and that made the twenty-eighth noise to be heard in and out and around about Hollow-Log Inn!

Maybe you think that after the kind words of Mr. Woodchuck, and the harmless way in which he just curled himself up and went to sleep, there was nothing more to be feared from him, but there was!

The snoring itself was pretty bad, but they could stand that. And the smell of the wet fur, that began to steam when he grew warm and snuggly as he slept, was pretty bad, but they could stand that too.

The real scary thing about it was that in his sleep he did something besides snore. He talked to himself, and made horrible, deep noises in his throat, and sometimes snoofed so suddenly that it made them jump. The whole log shook with the rain, wind, snoring, snoofing,[Pg 165] and other noises, and trembled like the whole company.

In his sleep the Woodchuck did something besides snore.
He talked to himself

All at once he wakened with such a start that they thought their last minutes had come this time. But after the big start that terrified them he was all right, and wakened the rest of the way more slowly and gently, though he still did a lot of short, muffled snoofings for a few minutes.

[Pg 166]

The rain and the wind died down meanwhile, and there were not quite all of those twenty-seven noises outside, so things really were much better.

“Hello, folks!” he said as he slowly and carefully uncurled himself. “How’s the weather? Any better?”

They all nodded, so he said, “Good! I hope I did not snore and make other noises. Did I?”

Well, to be honest, they all had to nod again, and they did.

“Now, that’s too bad,” he said. “It must have frightened you, and you shall have an explanation. You see, I had a fierce dream, and when I have a fierce dream I suppose I make fierce noises. This time I dreamed I was a Pirate with a capital P. Want to hear about it?”

Well, of course they had to nod again, and, to tell the truth, they were all curious to know what a Pirate was, for[Pg 167] none of them had seen one. The Woodchuck was so kind too, for all his noises, that if they were careful to keep out from under him they were safe enough. He had them come as close to the center of the log near him as they could, and then, in as low and soft snoofly sort of voice as he could, he talked to them.

“I suppose dreams come to us because of things we have been thinking hard about in the daytime, or things that have happened to us out of the common. That’s why I dreamed my fierce dream, no doubt. Here’s the thing that made me dream:

“As far back as yesterday, I was off near a fine cornfield a good bit of a distance from here, where in the spring I nearly got caught once for eating some of the corn the farmer had just planted in the hills. My farthest entrance to Burrow Hall is near that field, and it[Pg 168] was easy to get up there and find plenty to eat in those hills freshly planted. I had such a scare that time that not till yesterday did I have any more to do with that field than to run along the thickly tangled border of tall weeds once in awhile when I wished to go to another field. But yesterday the field was lying so quiet in the warm sunshine that I thought it quite safe to leave the tangled border and go into the thick rows of cornstalks. There is nothing that smells much better to me than the corn when the sun shines on it. Oh, my, but I like to take long whiffs of it!

“When I walked into the nice, long green hallways between the rows of corn, I was so happy I could have sung a song I used to sing years ago about ‘How Pleasant It Is in My Old Ground Home,’ but I kept perfectly quiet, for I knew it would not do to sing, as there[Pg 169] might be men in that field. But I wandered slowly in and out of the rows, and felt the cool, green leaves of the corn brushing against my sides. I took the longest, deepest breaths I could, and the sweetness of the warm, ripe tassel blossoms on the top of the stalks came down to me and made me want to smell that sweetness forever. It made me drowsy too, and there was such a quiet, snuggly spot to curl up in on the sun-warmed ground close to a bunch of the thick stalks that I made myself forget about men and all things bad, and crawled into the smallest ball I could make of myself. The last I remembered was the good, clean, sweet perfume of the corn.

“I may have slept a long while, and I may have slept only a few minutes, but I could not tell. Yet all at once I was flying for my life through the rows of[Pg 170] corn. I dodged here and there into other rows and then doubled back on my tracks to keep the man who was chasing me from knowing where I was. At last I was back in the friendly tangle of the weeds along the fence, and shivering with fright from head to tail. Through the weeds I could see the cornstalks moving where the man was rushing about hunting for me. Soon I saw him come out of the field and look all around.

“‘You old Pirate, you!’ he cried, shaking his fist toward the place where he thought I was hiding myself.

“Now that is the very worst name any good, innocent Woodchuck can be called. Do any of you know what it means?”

They all shook their heads.

“Neither do I,” said the Woodchuck. “That is, I don’t know much except that a Pirate is an awful thing. Once I saw[Pg 171] pictures of a Pirate in a book two boys were reading in the farmer’s barn. They hid the book in the hay, and afterward part of it was under the corncrib where I strolled through, one day. The Pirate in the pictures was lean and dark and fierce-eyed, and he had knives, and a sword, and pistols, and a great black hat, and a black ship, and awful boots, and the worst lot of men like him on the ship, you ever saw. The words in the book were dreadful. I don’t know the meaning of them, but I am sure no good Woodchuck ever would want to say them and couldn’t invent such bad words if he tried. I saw a lot of things said about pieces of eight, about the Jolly Roger, about scuttling the ship, and about walking the plank. Anyway, I know from the farmer’s looks, and the way he shook his fist, that he could not have called me a worse name.

[Pg 172]

“That made me dream I was off on the big ocean in that black ship, and that I had that black hat, and looked mad as mad, and took my sword and waved it around my head, and hollered all those words I read in the book. Then all at once another ship came sailing along the ocean and fired a big cannon at me—bang, smash! Off I rolled into the ocean—ker-plunk, splash! Then I woke up, and glad was I to find I was not so awful a thing as a Pirate with a capital P, as they spelled him in the book. If that farmer had seen the picture of the Pirate and then looked at me, he would have seen at once there was no reason to call me such a thing—an innocent Woodchuck like myself who never carried a sword in my life, nor would think of such a thing!”

Stepping as carefully as they could, out marched the whole
company from Hollow-Log Inn

The whole company thought the same [Pg 174]thing, and as the storm had stopped, and they could make the Woodchuck hear, they thanked him, not only for letting them stay, but for telling them his dream. It had been like a lecture, for a lecture teaches things, and they had learned what a Pirate is.

Then, stepping as carefully as they could on the nearest dry places, out they went from Hollow-Log Inn: Anthony Ant, the Crickets, the Thousand-legged Worms, the Daddy Long-legs; the little Bugs, the medium-sized Bugs, and big Bugs; the Toad, the Lizard, the green Snake, the draggled Moth, the Walking-Stick Insect, the Snail in a shell, the Snapping Beetle, the Berry Bug, the Katydid; the funny thing that might have been a Katydidn’t; the unpleasant, wiggly thing part Bug and part Worm; the Locust, the Slug, and goodness knows what else besides!

Anthony Ant did not wait long to see what became of the others in the company. Some of them were creatures that might like to eat Ants, once there was no more rain to make them forget they were hungry. But he soon found that to get over the ground was not a good thing to try to do at present, by any means. It was so full of puddles here and there, and the whole place was still so drippy from so much rain, that he would have to walk maybe miles out of his way in going any distance at all. Then there was the danger of big drops falling on him.

He went back to the log, but not inside. Instead, he climbed up outside and sat on top of Hollow-Log Inn.

[Pg 176]

It was all pretty forlorn. There was no one nearer to talk to than Mr. Woodchuck down inside the log, and probably he had gone to sleep again. The log was wet and unpleasant, so that Anthony could not sit there long, but had to stand up. In Ant-Hill Manor even wet days like this were not bad at all. Mother Ant read stories to them. They could play in the tool house, and do picture puzzles, and paint in their painting books, and make the phonograph play cheerful tunes, and do seventeen other different things. Never had they been obliged to sit out on logs in a wet world.

The Ant could not even take any interest in eating his lunch, for he was too lonesome to feel hungry. Besides, he would have to stand up to eat, and it would be no fun at all. He did not know how soon he might need food[Pg 177] badly when he could not find any to catch, and the little he had left in his basket he thought he’d better save for awhile. So he did not even unstrap his basket, but stood around first on some of his legs and then on some other of his legs, feeling sort of miserable and whiney—the way some children feel when they make that noise that is almost like the cry of a little puppy dog.

All at once the sun came out, and one of the Crickets that had been in Hollow-Log Inn began to crick, crick, crick from some high place near by, and the world seemed a little better. Anthony Ant went to the end of the log and peered over at things, and he saw by looking down at a puddle on the ground that the sky above was blue, for it had given the puddle a blue face.

He was crawling down toward the ground near the puddle, and stepping[Pg 178] very carefully around on the dry inside of the entrance of the log, when suddenly Mr. Woodchuck thought he would go out to see the world too. In coming through the entrance—or exit, as it now was to the Woodchuck—he brushed poor Anthony Ant right along with him. The little Ant had only time to clutch tight hold of Mr. Woodchuck’s fur as well as possible, and to trust to luck.

Mr. Woodchuck did not know about the passenger he was carrying, and Anthony Ant was too frightened to try to call to him to stop. So on he went with Mr. Woodchuck, and Mr. Woodchuck headed straight out to the open field where the grass was not so deep, and the weeds were not so tall as near the log. How wet the field was! The Ant luckily was on top of the Woodchuck’s back, and well down in the fur, so he did not get the brushing from the[Pg 179] grasses and weeds he would have had on either of Mr. Woodchuck’s sides.

The Woodchuck went in the same direction the Ant
wished to go

The Woodchuck went in the same direction the Ant wished to go—straight as could be toward the right—and that was something worth while. But out in the middle of the field was one of the entrances of Burrow Hall, and all at once Anthony Ant found himself[Pg 180] going down into a hole under a great rock. Something must be done about it that instant if he did not want to get lost in the middle of the earth. He caught at a grass blade bending near enough to reach him, and drew himself up to the stem. Mr. Woodchuck therefore went down into the hole without his passenger, and the Ant was safe and sound very much farther on his way around the world, and also in a good, dry spot where it would be a fine plan for him to stay for the night. By morning it would be dry in the field, so he could travel twice as fast. He sat and swayed on the long grass stem, and fixed his feelers, and scrubbed himself nice and clean, and ate all but just enough for his breakfast in the morning. Then, when the sun went down, he cuddled into the place where one of the blades of grass was joined to the stem, and there[Pg 181] he fell fast asleep, without dreaming he was a Pirate, either.

The world was all singing and shining and smelling sweet when he woke in the morning as rested as could be. Oh, but it would be a fine day to travel! He could imagine the other Ants of Ant-Hill Manor getting out their little wheelbarrows from the tool house and starting in for the day’s work after a nice breakfast. A tiny lump came into his throat even on this lovely morning when he felt so brave. Just to think of them all so contented and happy at their work made him a little homesick. He would have been glad to work with them that fine morning, he knew. But he wouldn’t go home yet. No—no, sir-ee, so there! He coughed to show how brave he was. He ate all that remained of his food to show how brave he was, and the breakfast made him feel braver yet.

[Pg 182]

First of all, he would go hunting food as he so often had done at home. When his lunch basket was well filled, he would show that he could take the whole of Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug’s prescription whether it was good or bad to follow out.

But here the worst thing of all happened. Anthony Ant was too quick in bragging about what he would do. He stepped off too lively on his next Ant Venture. Ants sometimes lose their balance or their footing, you know, and Anthony Ant lost both his balance and his footing at the same time. Down he went to the short grasses below. While a fall like that would not have made a bit of difference to him usually, this time it did for the reason that he landed upon the veranda of a fine, new home a large jumpy Spider had just finished building. That is what the large jumpy Spider built the veranda for. He had[Pg 183] made the veranda webby and sticky on purpose. Though he made it for catching flies, he did not in the least object to other insects he might eat.

Anthony Ant lost both his balance and his footing
at the same time

“Ho, I have you now!” he cried, as he ran out from his house cave back in the clover.

[Pg 184]

“Oh, please don’t hurt me!” cried Anthony Ant. “I fell down quite by accident. I did not mean to!”

“I can’t help that,” said the Spider. “I’ve got you now, and as soon as I get you tied up I shall take you back into my house and eat you.”

Oh, how poor Anthony Ant cried! He kicked and he screamed, and his feet were more and more tangled in the web all the time.

The Spider was just reaching for him and would have given him a big bite to quiet him until the tying had been done, when a big, buzzy thing pounded down so hard into the web veranda that the large jumpy Spider ran back in a hurry. It was a big Bumblebee, and he was so angry at the way the Spider was treating so small a creature as Anthony Ant that he flew from a clover-blossom feast he was having, and bounced up[Pg 185] and down upon the web veranda to show what he thought of such business.

When the Spider saw who he was, there was a fight, I can tell you! Out rushed the Spider with more web ropes and jumped all around the Bumblebee, biting at him and trying to tangle him in the ropes. But the Bumblebee took care to keep his wings out of the web, and he bounced the veranda up and down so hard that he tore it all to pieces, and got out Anthony Ant and pulled him away from the place. Then when he saw how Anthony’s feet were tangled, he helped untangle them. Anthony told him about the dressing case, and the Bumblebee hunted until he found it, and Anthony’s hat and basket too. It was not long before Anthony and the Bumblebee had their bruises and knocks bandaged and dressed with salve and healing things.

[Pg 186]

“Say,” said the Bumblebee, “that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”

Off the Bumblebee bumbled

“Oh!” cried Anthony Ant. “I owe you my very life, sir! I never can repay you!”

[Pg 187]

“Oh, yes you can,” said the Bumblebee with a grin.

“How?” asked the Ant eagerly.

“By coming up to Clover Lodge for tea at four o’clock this afternoon. That is Clover Lodge, yonder. I’ve got to be off to work now, but I always stop at four for a bit of refreshment. It rests me, for you see I’m an old fellow. I’ll say good-by now, but shall hope to see you there on the tip-top blossom at the hour named. Good-by!” And off he bumbled.

To sit upon a sweet, pink clover blossom is more than pleasant. But to sit there sipping clover tea, with clover sandwiches and clover honey and clover cakes, while you talk to a nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee, is about as magic as anything that can happen.

“It hasn’t hurt you to take a day from your work, I’m sure,” remarked the nice old fubbly Bumblebee. “You could not have worked after that jambling and jipping you had in the Spider’s web. It is a wonder you could even crawl as far as this, but I knew that if you could manage it a bit of refreshment here at Clover Lodge would set you right up. Feel better already, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I do!” cried the Ant.

[Pg 189]

“You are such a busy creature naturally,” said the Bumblebee, “that I have been wondering how you happened to get into the Spider’s neighborhood at all. I have not seen any Ant homes near there.”

Anthony hung his head.

“I wasn’t working,” he confessed.

“What!” cried the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee. “Not working! Oh, I see, I see! You were off on a hunting trip after food for the family pantry.”

“No, sir,” said Anthony Ant meekly.

“Sick, then?” asked the Bumblebee gently.

“No, sir,” said Anthony Ant, and told him the whole story.

Well, how that nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee laughed! He laughed most of all at the point where Anthony told the name of the doctor.

[Pg 190]

“What! Alec Beetle Bug? The old rascal! I know him well. He is a good sort, but a regular Villain for jokes too. Oh, he’s all right, and his prescription hasn’t hurt you, though I wish he could see how nearly it made an end of you! Never mind. Stick to the cure, only look out for jumpy Spiders next time. Well, well, well!” And he fell to chuckling so hard that the Ant could see that Dr. Beetle Bug and the Bumblebee must have been full of fun in their youth.

All things come to an end, and some come to an end too soon. This little visit at Clover Lodge was one of the good things that ended sooner than the Ant could have wished. But Bumblebees have to get home before dark, and it was a long air trip the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee had to take to reach his.

“I’d stay here all night if I were you,”[Pg 191] he said to Anthony Ant. “It won’t cost you a thing. You will find plenty of honey in the clover cupboards, and all these cakes and things are paid for, so take what are left with you in the morning. Good luck to you! Some day I’m coming to Ant-Hill Manor to hear how things turned out with you. You tell Doctor Alec to take a trip over my way some day, and I’ll let him feel my pulse, ha, ha! Tell him to come over to hear my latest jokes. Good-by, lad!” And off he went.

Ah, but the Ant did not like to see the sun go down that night! Clover Lodge was so lonely and cold and blue without that nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee. The sun set in a glow, but it made him feel only more lonely, and all his sore spots seemed to ache. What if that jumpy Spider should crawl up Clover Lodge’s ladderway in the night[Pg 192] and grab him! Oh, if only the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee would come back!

Once asleep, poor Anthony Ant had bad dreams. He woke in a fright, and in the soft moonlight saw all kinds of things coming after him, or thought he saw them, which was just as bad. One shadow looked like the jumpy Spider—so much so, that he sat right up and screamed!

Then all at once he thought of his pass. He took it from the basket where he had stowed it away, and set it up where he could see it in the moonlight and where everything else that might come to harm him would see it. It looked almost Japanese in the moonlight.

Then he fell asleep again and dreamed a Japanese dream of cherry blossoms, and wind bells, and incense, and storks,[Pg 193] and funny bridges, and a pale blue mountain, and plum trees, and all that sort of thing. It was such a lovely dream that it woke him up as wide awake as the bad dream had. But there was a difference now. He was not the least afraid, but he thought hard.

Now, as he thought, the night wind blew, and the stars twinkled, and the grasses swayed, and the Crickets not too tired to crick did it, and the soft moonlight kept on shining. It was all like a poem—rather solemn, and rather happy, and rather lumpy-in-the-throat—of the good, cheerful sort that made you want to cry or laugh, or a little of each without knowing whether you were happy or sad. Anyway, with a shout of joy, suddenly Anthony Ant felt the last part of the cure of Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug’s prescription take hold. He was cured! No more change for Anthony Ant! He[Pg 194] had had all he wanted. He knew, for he asked himself all the questions the Firefly had told him that would help him know whether or not the cure was finished, and there was no doubt about the matter any more. Did Anthony Ant want to work? He did! Was he lonesome without his mother and the others? He was! Did he wish his mother was here nights when he was scared? Yes, he did, pass or no pass! Moreover, if another large, weepy sort of lump should rise in his throat, he felt he never could swallow it as he had managed to swallow the others. He would have to choke out loud! He would go right back home in the morning! He no longer needed any Firefly to tell whether or not the cure was finished. At last he himself just knew!

So he tucked himself up once more, slept the remainder of the night in peace, and finished that lovely Japanese dream.

Now in the morning, as we know, things look very different. What people make up their minds in the night to do the next day, they sometimes do not carry out at all. But with Anthony Ant this was not so. He was more than ever sure the right thing to do was to go back home. The more he thought of it, the surer he was.

“I’d better not be in too much of a hurry to start, after all,” he thought. “Mercy, me! Here I was, nearly running off without eating a mouthful or taking any of this good food to help me along!”

He found that some one must have been there after all while he was yet dreaming. He must have slept very late, indeed. So he had, for before the[Pg 196] sun had wakened him that mischievous, nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee came to Clover Lodge and played a trick—a fine, good trick. He packed Anthony Ant’s lunch basket full of the most nourishing food there was to be had at Clover Lodge, and the little jar that had held the Wild-Rose Tea House cheese was now full to the brim with the sweetest Clover Lodge honey. Then, someway or other, there was a steaming pot of Clover coffee and clover pancakes piping hot, ready to be eaten with some of the Clover Lodge honey on them.

The reason for all this was that, out of curiosity, the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee had come back. By the teardrops on the cheeks of Anthony Ant, who did not know himself that he had cried in his sleep, and by the way the little Ant looked, the wise, nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee knew what[Pg 197] Anthony Ant had made up his mind to do. So he flew about doing the fine, good trick hard and fast, and then went about his business, knowing right well that it would not be long before Ant-Hill Manor would be having back again one of its very best workers.

You know how hard it is to eat your breakfast Christmas morning when your presents are waiting to be opened? Well, sir, that’s just the way it was with Anthony Ant trying to eat his breakfast this morning. As good as the breakfast was, it seemed as though it was the hardest work to swallow a mouthful, he was so crazy to be off to the left on his journey home. But he made himself eat the cakes and honey and drink the steaming, good clover coffee. Then he reached for his basket to pack, and how surprised he was to find it packed! He never would have known who had played[Pg 198] this fine, good trick on him if it had not been for something scrawled on a leaf in a sort of buzzling handwriting, and the something said, in the slang language sometimes used by such a person as the wise, nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee, “Go to it!” And it was signed just “B.”

Something was scrawled on the leaf in a sort of buzzling
handwriting

[Pg 199]

Whether that meant go to the eating of the lunch or to the carrying out of the home trip, Anthony Ant did not stop to figure out. He just gave a gulp of joy at the thought of such a kind, thoughtful friend as the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee had been in his deeds, and, after a look about to see that hat, case, and basket were gathered together, he took them and started on the homeward way.

It was pleasant going too. The roughnesses were not so rough, and the smoothnesses were smoother. Why, he did not even have to think which way was right and which was left! It was as though a magnet kept drawing him but one way, and he knew that pulling feeling he had was the Ant-Hill Manor direction drawing him home.

Anthony Ant steered clear of the spot where he knew the jumpy Spider had[Pg 200] nearly caught him for keeps. Not once did he take his eye off the track ahead to be sure no other jumpy Spider was ready to pounce upon him.

No jumpy Spider pounced upon him, but there was one very exciting Ant Venture yet. It happened at the top of the tallest thistle in the field. Anthony Ant had climbed it to get a good view of the land before he traveled too far over what might be the hardest part of the field. Sometimes it saves time, you know, to take time. So sometimes it saves time, in traveling, to take time to go a bit out of your way to have a look at the general path ahead as far as you can see.

Up went the Ant along the thistle stem, and he did not mind the thorns the least bit. He went around them and between them, and had no trouble getting to the top at last. He climbed over[Pg 201] the top of the cluster of blossom heads. There were a few buds not yet opened, and a few blossoms quite opened, and a very few that had grown so old that their hair had turned white and was ready to fly away.

He was sitting on one of the fat little buds, where he could see over the heads of the grasses and low weeds, when all at once something flew down so near Anthony that the whirring of the wings nearly made him lose his balance. He dodged back between this bud and the next one where the something with wings could not get him. My, what an exciting world this was!

The thing with whirring wings that came to a stop near him was a little Yellowbird with black on his tail and wings. He was not after Ants at all, but after the seeds he knew were under the whiteheaded old blossoms. He busily[Pg 202] pulled off the fluff which flew away into the summer air, and then he dug out the small seeds which were young and juicy and sweet, as they were not yet ripe and too hard.

Anthony thought it safe to speak to the bird, so he said, “O sir, would you mind telling me if there are any jumpy Spiders in this way to the left I am taking toward the brook?”

“Yes,” answered the Yellowbird. “There are lots of them.”

“Oh, my!” said poor Anthony Ant. “I was caught by one once, and nearly lost my life. What shall I do to escape them?”

“Ho!” replied the Yellowbird. “I should not mind them if I were you. I never do.”

“Yes, but you are big and can eat them up if you want to, and they are afraid of you,” said Anthony. “But,[Pg 203] you see, I am so small they can eat me without a bit of trouble, and what to do, I cannot tell.”

“Where are you going?” asked the Yellowbird. “Are you running away from home? All the other Ants I have met this morning were busy at work. You are the only one I have seen doing nothing but sitting still.”

Anthony told him all about things, and the Yellowbird said, “Oh, well, then, I’ll help you. First of all, be on the watch for the webs, of course, and then steer clear of them. But if a jumpy Spider darts out at you from behind something where he has been hiding, just say my name three times to him in a loud voice, and he will run and hide. For if he thinks I am around he will hide himself, and if he knows you are my friend he won’t meddle with you. Now, good luck to you, and go home at once.[Pg 204] You will find a straight-ahead road or course through this field. Keeping always to the left, as you now are, will bring you to the brook in time, and then you will know where you are.”

“Thank you so much!” said Anthony Ant, and took off his hat to bow politely.

You know little Yellowbirds like this one say something every time they dip their wings in flying across a field. Well, this little Yellowbird flew away soon, and as he flew he said out of real joy at finding Anthony Ant going back to Ant-Hill Manor: “Back home again! Back home again! Back home again!” every time he dipped his wings.

Yes, sir, it was exactly as the Yellowbird had said, as Anthony Ant found as he went away from the thistle and on through the tall, thick grass with his face set toward the left. Everyone was working. Not a Bug, nor a Beetle, nor a Worm, nor a Caterpillar, nor anything whatever at all had time to more than nod at him as he passed through the busy field world. They were all digging, or hunting, or building, or getting meals, or something of that kind all along the way. The farther he went, the more he thought how fine a thing it would be to get at that little wheelbarrow of his again.

By and by, as he was crawling along over a blade and under a blade, and on the ground, and up a weed to a bridge[Pg 206] across to another weed, and down that weed, he came plump out over a monstrous new web of a monstrous jumpy Spider. There, sir, was the jumpy Spider’s head poking out of the cave house at the back of the web. Anthony Ant was so high above the web that he was as safe as could be, but he saw at once that it would not do for him to go down that weed. It would land him right on the monstrous jumpy Spider’s web, and that would be an end of Master Anthony Ant.

“Oh, ho!” said he. “I’m pretty glad to be up here instead of any nearer.”

Just for fun he played a trick on the monstrous jumpy Spider. He bit off a small piece of leaf and dropped it down upon the web veranda. You ought to have seen how fast that Spider pounced upon the bit of leaf! Although Anthony Ant was so safe, he had to shiver to[Pg 207] think how he would have felt in the place of the leaf. Then the monstrous jumpy Spider, looking up, saw Anthony Ant, and began to dance up and down on the web veranda in a great rage.

The monstrous jumpy Spider, looking up, saw Anthony
Ant, and began to dance up and down
in a great rage

[Pg 208]

“What do you mean, you villain, you!” cried the old Spider. “You young scoundrel! Let me get at you once and I’ll show you!”

He bounced up and down so hard on the web veranda that Anthony Ant shook like a bit of leaf himself. Oh, my, my! Of course, he had no business to play a trick upon the monstrous jumpy Spider, and it was mean, even if the old Spider was a bad fellow who killed innocent Ants and things he could catch. Yes, it served the Ant right to have this scare, he well knew, and the scare was turning out to be a real danger. The Spider shook the whole web so hard that the entire bridge of this weed was wiggling so fast that the Ant could not back away on it to the weed from which he had come, and thus get away. No, sir! He was nicely paid for his wicked little trick. Unless the old Spider[Pg 209] stopped that shaking of the web, Anthony Ant would be thrown down upon it and eaten up. He clung on as hard as he could with all his feet and hands. Then all like a flash through his mind came the words of the Yellowbird, and in as loud a voice as his trembling would let him he cried down at the monstrous Spider, “Yellowbird! Yellowbird! Yellowbird!”

Well, sir, you should have seen the sudden change in that Spider’s looks! He had been black and fierce looking, and now he was almost gray, he was so pale. Besides, he was no longer stiff and fierce, but limp and scared, and, as well as the limpness would let him, he lost no time in getting back into that farthest-away corner of that cave house at the back of the web veranda.

It did not take Anthony Ant long to climb back along that bridge, and off[Pg 210] by another little out-of-the-way path until he could safely pass the spot where the old monstrous jumpy Spider lived. He said to himself he never would play a wicked trick again on anything.

It was high noon when he stopped to eat some of the Clover Lodge refreshments. How good they tasted! As he ate, he thought of that good, nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee, and how the trick the Bumblebee had played was a kind one. That was the only trick to play—one that was good and kind—not a wicked one like that he himself had just played on the old Spider. Anthony had taken off his hat to cool his head while he ate, and he saw the mottoes the good, friendly Grasshopper had pasted in for him. The longer motto he read aloud:

“Don’t Get Angry at Nothing at All, and Don’t Get Angry at Anything!”

[Pg 211]

Well, he had not been angry today, but he had made the Spider get angry. That was almost as bad as though he himself had been angry. His mother had told him many a time that even if you did not take part in a sin, but made someone else do the sin, it was as bad as though you did it yourself, and you were no better than the one who sinned.

“I guess I was pretty terrible,” said Anthony Ant with a thoughtful sigh.

All at once he thought of something. He would be braver than he ever had been in his life. He would go back softly to that bridge and ask the Spider’s pardon. And this is the way Anthony Ant did it:

He put on his hat, took all his things, and traveled all that long way back, though it made it nearly half a day more before he would be home. Climbing carefully and quietly to the bridge, he[Pg 212] stole slowly out over the old monstrous jumpy Spider’s web veranda and dropped a small Fly he had caught on the way on purpose for a peace offering.

Out came the monstrous jumpy Spider in an instant and grabbed the Fly in a hurry.

“O Mr. Spider!” called Anthony Ant. “I am the bad Ant that teased you this morning by fooling you with the piece of leaf. I am very sorry. I’ll never do it again, and I caught the Fly for you just now to let you know I really mean it when I say I am sorry. Will you please forgive me this time?”

My, but the Spider was surprised! He nearly dropped the Fly, and would have dropped it, only that he was so hungry he already had bitten into it, and stopped with the bite in his mouth. But never had any one asked him for forgiveness before, and the more he[Pg 213] thought about it, the more surprised he was.

By and by, in his surprise, he let the Fly fall right out of his mouth to the floor of his web veranda, and he said slowly, “Well, that beats me! I never heard the like! To think you would be so kind to me when I was so angry at you I could have eaten you, and should have if I had gotten hold of you! I know I’m a gruff old fellow, and I’m sorry too, and it was mighty good of you to bring me the Fly. I thank you. If there was anything to forgive you for, I do from the bottom of my heart!”

Anthony Ant thanked him, and with a light heart said good-by. He ran back the way he had come, to make up for lost time. The journey seemed only half as long to the spot where he had eaten his luncheon. Though it was[Pg 214] nearly time to think of supper, he felt well repaid by the good feeling in his heart for all that long journey back to make his peace with the Spider.

As for Mr. Spider as he sat in his doorway after his feast given him by the Ant, he thought and thought more than ever he had thought in his life. The words he thought were about the same as those in the Ant’s hat:

“Don’t Get Angry at Nothing at All, and Don’t Get Angry at Anything!”

The next day Anthony Ant came to a bit of marsh. He had not passed this bit of marsh on his way out from home for the reason that he was not following his exact footsteps back. His many little side trips and Ant Ventures where things made it not so easy to get along made him take a different path back. But by traveling always toward the left he knew he would come out in time to the brook, which was a sort of landmark—I should say, watermark, to make it exactly true.

This marsh was a most interesting place. He crawled up a tall cat-tail to see if he could catch a glimpse of the brook, for he knew the brook had many marshy spots near its banks on either[Pg 216] side from place to place along its course. This might be one of the brook’s marshes.

At the top of the cat-tail he found he was not yet able to see far ahead. There were other cat-tails taller than the one he tried, and he had made a mistake in guessing he could see far from this one. As he was thinking about the matter, a beautiful Dragon Fly with gauzy wings came sailing across the cat-tails and lighted upon the one nearest him—within speaking distance. He was not a bit afraid of the Dragon Fly. Dragon Flies may catch Mosquitoes and Gnats and such things, but Anthony Ant knew the Dragon Fly did not eat Ants.

“Good morning, Mr. Dragon Fly,” said Anthony Ant politely.

“The same to you,” replied the Dragon Fly in a friendly voice.

“You are so wise,” said Anthony, “and [Pg 217]see so much of the world, that I should like to ask you if this is a marsh belonging to the brook or just a marshy spot in the field and not near a brook at all. Which is it?”

“Good morning, Mr. Dragon Fly,” said Anthony Ant politely

“Both!” answered the Dragon Fly with a little grin.

“How could it be both?” asked Anthony Ant.

“I’ll tell you,” said the Dragon Fly. “It really is a little spot by itself, not connected at all with the brook, because there is a good stretch of land between this marsh and the brook. But it is also a sort of a belonging of the brook, because, when there are rains and rains and rains in the spring, sometimes the brook flows right over this way, and this marsh spreads over toward the brook, and it is almost like one big marsh, or one big brook, whichever you would rather call it.”

[Pg 218]

“I see,” said the Ant. “Can you see the brook from the cat-tail where you are sitting?”

“No,” said the Dragon Fly, “but I have seen it, and this very day too. I just came from that way. It doesn’t take an airplane like me long to get as far as the brook, you see. But it would take any one as little as you without wings a good long time, I should think. I should guess you had part of another day’s journey ahead of you if you started right off. Are you in a tearing hurry to get there?”

“Well, the sooner I do, the sooner I shall get back to Ant-Hill Manor,” said the Ant, “and I cannot get there any too soon to suit me.” And he told the Dragon Fly all about his coming away from home and everything.

“Well, well!” said the Dragon Fly. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get[Pg 219] back. Now that is a funny thing. It never would do at all for me to go back to the place where I was born. I could not possibly live there.”

“Why not?” asked the Ant.

“Because,” was the Dragon Fly’s answer, “I was born down in the marsh where I was first a water creature living under the water, and crawling about sort of buglike and sort of wormlike, I suppose, till I was old enough to crawl up a weed, and sit and dream by the hour. Then I suddenly found I was the owner of these wings which I did not have when I was living in the water. So I crawled right up into the air, and my wings dried to this lovely gauze. The sun put into them all the colors of the rainbow. Here I have lived ever since, around these cat-tails where I can sail up and off for ever and ever so far to see the sights, and then come back here[Pg 220] to sit and think about it all. But I never could live in the water again where I was born, you see, or I should drown.”

“That is so,” said the Ant. “And what is the best thing you have seen in your air trips?”

“The best thing I have seen in any sort of trip I ever have taken is the sun,” replied the Dragon Fly. “There is nothing that can match it—not even the moon on the loveliest night when the Whippoorwill calls, and the Owl cries, and the Bat frisks, and the Fireflies dance with their lanterns, and the whole marsh is more like a Japanese picture than like anything that possibly could be just plain marsh. Yes, sir, the sun is the best thing in the world. I have often tried to fly to it to thank it for my rainbow colors it gave me after my stupid sort of life in the water.”

“It is lovely,” remarked the Ant[Pg 221] thoughtfully, “but don’t you like the dew too? It was lovely early this morning, and so refreshing to bathe in. Then I thought nothing could be so lovely in the world as dew.”

“Oh, yes,” said the Dragon Fly. “Dew is all right in its way, but give me the sun every time. The sun drinks up the dew after awhile, anyway.”

“So it does,” said the Ant. “I have noticed that.”

“By the way,” the Dragon Fly went on, “between the marsh and the brook you want to look out for the sundew when you sit down to rest anywhere.”

“Oh, but the sun won’t hurt me,” said Anthony Ant. “It never has, and I’ve traveled on the hottest days. As for the dew, why, it couldn’t possibly hurt me. Haven’t I bathed in it right along?”

“Oh, I see you don’t know what I mean, but you’ll find out if you happen[Pg 222] to meet the sundew. You may not meet it, anyway, and if you should, it won’t hurt you much. I know you won’t linger with it too long, and you are strong.”

“What is it like?” asked the Ant.

The Dragon Fly chuckled.

“I’m not going to tell you,” was his answer. “Just for fun, I’m going to let you find out for yourself. Don’t be alarmed, though. I’d surely tell you if it was too dangerous for you. It is for smaller things than you. I’ll risk you. Anyway, you may not even see a glimpse of it. Lots of people spend too much time thinking about unpleasant things that after all never happen to them, so don’t waste a second’s thought on it. Good luck to you!” And away he sailed to take a nearer look at the sun.

Thoughtfully Anthony Ant crawled down the cat-tail and went on toward the brook.

“Since I cannot reach the brook tonight, I may as well go carefully, camp out in some pleasant spot for the night, and rest my feet so that I shall be able to stand the way of the rough spots around the brook more easily tomorrow,” he said to himself.

Nothing exciting happened until he came to such a spot. It was a soggy, spongy, mossy spot in the field where the grass was not too tall, and where the ground was a bit more moist and sweet fern made the air like perfume.

Here Anthony Ant pulled off his shoes and stockings and hung up his hat where[Pg 224] he could keep an eye on it. He never had forgotten the Field Mouse Ant Venture. Then he sat down on a comfortable-looking flat weed that was almost like a cushion. How cosy this seat was! It seemed to fit him exactly. As he bore his whole weight upon it the weed cushion began to fit more and more cosily about him, he thought.

The Ant was drowsy. He thought he would take a small nap of not more than seven or eight winks before he ate his supper. He started to get up just to turn himself over a little more to the side, when, lo and behold, sir, he found it easier to think about getting up than to get up! He was held down rather too firmly by tiny red hairs that were folding all about him from the weed cushion. That did not suit him, you’d better believe, so he roused himself in a hurry and began to pull himself away.[Pg 225] He found that he was getting covered with something sticky that helped keep him back in the clutches of the thing he had sat down upon.

At last, by twisting and turning and kicking and pulling, he freed himself and looked back to see the queer sort of plant that had tried to catch him. There he saw a tiny Fly already dead from having been folded in by those fine red hairs of another of the cushion leaves of this strange plant.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” chuckled a good-natured voice above him. “What do you think of sundew now?”

Anthony Ant looked up, and there sat the Dragon Fly peering down at him through great far-seeing, horn-rimmed glasses he wore on his air trips.

“I was sailing by and thought I’d see if by any chance you had come as far as this on your homeward way,” said he,[Pg 226] and lighted upon a sweet fern leaf near Anthony.

“Bring your things over here,” he continued. “Better sleep in the sweet fern bed tonight. It’s perfectly safe. I’ll help you brush up a bit first.”

Anthony Ant needed brushing. While the Dragon Fly helped him scrape off the sticky stuff and wash and comb himself, with the things Anthony had in the dressing case, the good-natured Dragon Fly told the Ant all about sundew and how it ate up little insects it held with the sticky stuff and the hairs that curled over things that lighted upon its leaves.

The Ant invited the Dragon Fly to stay to supper with him, for there was plenty for both in the lunch basket, and enough for Anthony’s breakfast besides. The Dragon Fly was tickled to pieces over the Clover Lodge honey. He never had tasted it before.

[Pg 227]

The Ant invited the Dragon Fly to stay to supper with him

[Pg 228]

After supper what do you think they did? Why, they just sat and talked about this thing, that thing, and the other thing, until it was later than Dragon Flies and Ants stayed up usually. The Dragon Fly told Anthony Ant all the best of the marsh stories he could think of that ended pleasantly. Anyway, so far as the Dragon Fly knew, he could not tell a story that ended unpleasantly. Such stories he never remembered, as they never cheered any one up and they left bad tastes in the mouth, he said. But he did tell the Ant about Will-o’-the-wisps; and about the pale blue, wild iris that blossoms in the spring; and about Red-winged Blackbirds that bring new stories from the South every year; and about a Marsh Hen; and about the little Wild Duck that knew something worth while; and about Frogs and what they meant by the[Pg 229] different noises they called across the marsh on lonely nights; and about the murmuring of the waters around the rushes; and about the songs in poems the rushes whispered; and about the Wind that carried the poems to places where there were no poems. Anthony Ant thought it all a beautiful dream.

Then the Dragon Fly said “Good night” and “Good luck” once more and sailed off to bed in the marsh, and Anthony Ant tucked himself up in the sweet fern. First, however, for fear there might be something he had not yet seen that might hurt him, he put his pass out in plain sight. He even took care to guard against any jumpy Spider that might be around there by calling out in his loudest voice, three times, like this: “Yellowbird! Yellowbird! Yellowbird!”

Oh, but the next morning was a morning worth looking at twice! Anthony Ant looked at it twice too. All the time he was scrubbing up he sang the little tune he liked best as played by the phonograph at home, and all the time he ate his breakfast he thought about the tune when he could not sing it. He was not long in getting on his way, either. He was homesick for a look at the brook. Who knows how much more homesick for the home far over on the other side!

The Dragon Fly, you remember, told Anthony Ant it might not take more than a part of the day for an Ant like Anthony to reach it. But, though the Ant started early and traveled fast, he[Pg 231] had to make a number of long side trips to get out of the way of things that cluttered up his path and to keep out of the way of several jumpy Spiders. Besides, there were several things that chased him out of his path a number of times and nearly caught him. So not until late in the afternoon did the traveler come to the brook.

As Anthony Ant drew nearer and nearer the brook, he thought something was calling him down toward the right. It was something that did not have a voice, and yet it was something that called him so plainly that he had to go to see what it was. And what do you think the something was? Why, nothing more nor less than a wireless message! Yes, sir, a wireless message! It told him to come down to the right, and then straight ahead.

He did this, and as he went on he[Pg 232] heard the brook. It was bubbling softly in the distance somewhere. Then, after a little more traveling, he saw a sight that made him really toss up his hat for joy. No wonder he had received a wireless message! Why, there was the famous rose bush of the Wild-Rose Tea House! Oh, my! The wireless message must have been sent by the small Spider, Size Two, or by the Ladybug herself!

He lost no more time standing there tossing up his hat, but clapped it upon his head as fast as he could and began to climb the rose bush.

He was up at last. Ah, yes! And there sat the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two, smiling for all they were worth. They had known how to make him find the proper place for a supper that night! They had studied broadcasting carefully, you see.

If it had not been an impolite thing to[Pg 233] do, they would have danced around and around to show how happy they were at meeting again. But in a tea house so famous as the Wild-Rose Tea House you cannot get up and jump around without making people wonder where your manners are, you know. So they merely shook hands with a good, hard grip of all the hands they three had, and told him his place was all set at their table, and his supper all ordered, and they had not had theirs yet but were waiting for him. So it was not many seconds before one of the best suppers ever served at that famous tea house was placed before one of the happiest parties of three that ever took place there.

“Well, well, well!” cried the small Spider, Size Two. “Your Ant Ventures by land and sea, as they say in stories, would fill a book! You ought to write[Pg 234] a book about it all when you get home.”

“Yes, indeed, you surely ought to!” said the Ladybug.

Anthony Ant laughed.

“I know a place I’d never go to try to sell the book,” said he, “and that is Mrs. Angleworm’s house. She has no use for books, I could see that plainly!”

Anthony took out the little jar of Clover Lodge honey to add to the treat. The keeper of this fine tea house of the Wild-Rose came to taste it too. He said he thought it paid to help other tea houses along, and he would order some right off, and advertise it as being used at the Wild-Rose Tea House. It would help Clover Lodge along to have so fine an advertisement, he knew.

The Ladybug said she would come here often, then, for her afternoon tea, and always call for Clover Lodge honey[Pg 235] with the delicious Wild-Rose tea cakes he knew so well how to make. This pleased the keeper of the tea house so much that he told them that if they would stay for the evening he would serve them large portions of his newly invented Wild-Rose Ice Cream free of charge. He knew they would like to have it. At a certain table he would give them they could hear the band concert with the brook accompaniment and have the best view of the Firefly illumination. Though it was late in the season for Fireflies, he had engaged some to come for the evening, and it might be worth while. They accepted his kind invitation at once.

It was one of the happiest evenings the Ant ever knew. They talked of the trip on the boat and wondered where the poor thing was now. The new ice cream must have been magic. It was different[Pg 236] from any they ever had tasted before, and sent little thrills of joy all through them. Yet each one somehow knew that the whole happiness of the feelings they all had, came from the fact that Anthony Ant had at last come to his full cure. They and he all knew he was doing the right thing in going home hard and fast.

“I am not going to write a book when I go home,” said he thoughtfully, before they separated that night.

“Oh, aren’t you?” asked the Ladybug. “What are you going to do?”

“Just work!” said Anthony Ant joyfully.

Good luck followed Anthony Ant all the remainder of the way home. It even seemed not to be following him, but waiting for him ahead at every turn. His feet did not get blistered and sore. His lunch basket once more had been slyly filled at the Wild-Rose Tea House, but this time by the good-natured keeper himself, who packed it with enough nourishing things to last the Ant for the final part of the journey. A good floating bit of stick was already waiting for him at the edge of the brook, and soon floated gently to a small stone, and from that to a branch that hung out from the home side of the shore. Then he had no trouble finding the old trail to Ant-Hill Manor, and when he[Pg 238] passed the Angleworm’s doorway he saw no sign of her.

Mrs. Angleworm turned back to get her broom

Now, since Anthony Ant had learned a few lessons by the way, he thought all at once about the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee’s good, kind trick. He decided, for fun, to play a nice, good trick on Mrs. Angleworm. He took one of the prettiest of the cakes from the[Pg 239] Wild-Rose Tea House and then rapped at the doorway. Out she soon came.

“Mercy, gracious!” she cried. “Here’s that horrid book agent again!”

She turned back to get her broom, but Anthony Ant bowed politely, and said, “Oh, do wait just a minute! I am not an agent for anything, and here is something free of charge to prove it!”

He held out the cake, and when she saw that, she did not know what to say. She took the cake, as he insisted, and she said she was sorry. You see she had caught sight of the motto in his hat: “Don’t Get Angry at Nothing at All, and Don’t Get Angry at Anything!” Besides, she saw the other motto: “Don’t Be Afraid of Work!” Even if the Ant was an agent, it was his work, maybe, and of course he must not be afraid of it. She wished him good luck if he ever did sell books, anyway.

[Pg 240]

It was that very day, and still morning, when Anthony Ant stole up to the high ground above Ant-Hill Manor and peeked down at it. What a happy lump came up into his throat! What a dear place it was!

Ah, there they were, all busy at work. And there was the tool house with door wide open as it was until time to put back the wheelbarrows at night, though it should have been closed each time to keep out any dampness. He knew that when it was left open like this his little sister, Antonia, was the one to blame. She always forgot to close that tool-house door.

He knew what he would do! He would steal down behind it, and crawl around it to the open door. When they did not see him, he would get out his own little wheelbarrow—he could see it near the door—and, without letting them see[Pg 241] him at first, he would work till they found him out!

Anthony knew what he would do! He would get out his
own little wheelbarrow

He had no trouble carrying out this plan. He had been working for an hour before one of them stopped to look up at all, and then suddenly discovered him.

“Why, here’s Anthony back again!” cried the discoverer.

Then, I can tell you, they crowded about him! They dragged him inside[Pg 242] to Mother Ant. Then they all had a surprise. Nothing surprises mothers much, as you may find out some day. Long before, she had had all kinds of wireless messages. Don’t ask how, for I don’t know exactly, except that they are always inside mothers, somehow. So there was a fine party waiting for them all in a thicket near Ant-Hill Manor. To this thicket she led the way.

There, whether you believe it or not, the noon meal was spread. At the head of the table, ready to carve, was none other than Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug!

Were there other invited guests? Well, I should say there were! And there they sat. Even the Angleworm was there; and the jumpy monstrous Spider that had become gentle; and the fussy, fuzzy Caterpillar; and the Ladybug; the small Spider, Size Two; the Mole of Molesworth Hall; the August[Pg 243] Croaker; the Robin; the Squirrel; the Flicker, who promised not to touch an Ant today; the Grasshopper; the Firefly; the Woodchuck and all the creatures that were kept from the rain in Hollow-Log Inn; the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee; the Yellowbird; and the Dragon Fly.

Oh, what a time they had! Anthony Ant sat at the end of the table with his mother. Everyone laughed and talked at once and had the best time you can imagine.

Not everyone is rewarded for doing the right thing as Anthony Ant was—that is, not by receiving presents and being praised, and all that sort of thing. But Anthony Ant knew inside his bones that it was reward enough just to come back to his good little wheelbarrow again. He had had all the change he wanted!

[Pg 244]

The insects suddenly tuned up, to the joy of everyone

The celebration had to last until after dusk for a special reason. That reason was that the night insects could come with their surprise. They had read the wireless messages. Wishing to add something of their own to the joy, they stole into that thicket until, unseen by the company, they had surrounded the merrymakers, and at a signal from all the Fireflies they could muster so late in the season they suddenly tuned up, to the joy of everyone. You never heard such a serenade in all your life, I am sure!

[Pg 245]

In the midst of the enjoyment the Ladybug handed Anthony Ant something in a large paper. He looked inside, and there was the motto she had promised, all framed! It was embroidered in a new stitch that looked as your mouth looks when you smile—a curve with the points turning up.

“I could not embroider the motto in cross-stitch,” said she. “I preferred to make it pleasant-stitch instead.”

And so to this day, in Ant-Hill Manor, there hangs, nicely framed and most delicately embroidered in pleasant-stitch, this motto:

“Never Think of the Good-by Part of a Pleasure Until the Good-by Part Comes!”

That is one reason why I am not going to say a word about the good-by part of this party. I should much rather have you sit and chuckle at the way[Pg 246] Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug is digging the nice old fubbly gentleman Bumblebee in the ribs instead of feeling his pulse, while they both giggle and buzzle over old jokes they knew when they were but young Beetle Buglet and Bumblebeelet. And I should much rather have you listen to the music of those joyous insects with their flutes, violins, zippers, and zingers, and zoomers, and buzzoons, and drummerinos, and all the funny instruments only night insects know how to play. If you look and listen until it all soaks right into your mind, you will know how wonderful was that very most greatest peace of Anthony Ant!