Queer Stories for Boys and Girls Part 11

Once in, Simon saw indeed the treasures of the Garuly's household. There were easy-chairs, made of the hulls of hickory-nuts; hammocks, made of the inside bark of the paw-paw; wash-bowls, curiously carved from the hulls of beech-nuts; and beautiful curtains, of the leaves of the silver poplar. The floor was paved with the seeds of the wild grape, and beautifully carpeted with the lichens from the beech and maple trees. The beds were made of a great variety of mosses, woven together with the utmost delicacy of workmans.h.i.+p. There was a bath-tub made of a mussel-sh.e.l.l, cut into beautiful cameo figures.

"How wonderful!" cried Simon, clapping his hands.

"The Garulies work together!" said the old man, more decidedly than before.

Simon noticed that his own voice was beginning to squeak like that of the old Garuly himself. But after seeing the interior of his dwelling, he would not have minded being changed into a Garuly.

The old man was now leading him out through a different entrance. Then along a path they went until they came to a fence, the rails of which seemed to Simon to be larger than logs. They crawled through the fence, and found themselves in a farm-yard. The chickens seemed to be larger than those great creatures that geologists say once lived on the earth, and that were as high as a house. Presently they came to a bee-stand. The bees seemed to Simon to be of immense size, and he was greatly afraid; but the old Garuly spoke to the fierce-looking sentinel bee that stood by the door and shook one of his antennae in a friendly way.

("His Aunt Annie?" said Chicken Little. "What do you mean?"

"His antennae are his feelers, the little hair-like things that stand out from his head.")

Now the bees seemed to know the Garuly, and so they let him pa.s.s in. But poor Simon had to be pounded down again before he was small enough to go in. When he got in, he saw a world of beauty. Being so small himself, and so near to the bees, he could see how beautiful their eyes were, made up of hundreds of little eyes, with little hairs growing out between them.

And then, too, the honey-comb seemed like great, golden wells, full of honey. Each well seemed as large as a barrel. They climbed up along the sides of the combs, and saw some bees feeding the young, some building cells, some bringing in honey, some feeding the queen bee, some clearing out the waste matter, and others standing guard. They all seemed cheerful.

"Bees all work together!" piped the old man. "No bee is selfish. These bees will not live to eat this honey. Bees that work hard in summer only live to be about two months old. This honey is stored for others. But see how happy they all are. How much may be done by those who work together cheerfully."

Out of the hive they went, and back toward the Garuly's house. But the old man turned aside to go to an ant-hill.

"Let's go in here," said the Garuly.

"No, I am too large," said Simon.

"Smaller! smaller! smaller!" cried the Garuly, beating him over the head again, until Simon was not much larger than the ants, and the ants appeared to be as large as ponies. Down the well-like hole they climbed, until they entered the chambers of the ants. Here all were busy, some carrying out earth, others excavating new chambers, others caring for the eggs, others bringing in food, while others were clearing out the road.

But no one grumbled, none said that he had the heaviest load.

"See!" cried the Garuly, "the little ants work together. They have all things in common. There is no selfishness and no quarrelling among them."

Just then a wise old ant came up, and hearing the Garuly's remark, he said,

"Did you never hear the

_"STORY OF THE SELFISH ANT?_

"There was once a selfish ant who could never be satisfied. He always thought he had the hardest work in the world. If he carried burdens, he complained that those who cared for the eggs had the easiest time; and if he had charge of the eggs, he wished to be changed to some other kind of work. At last he thought he would set up for himself. It was exceedingly hard work for him to dig and find his own food with no help, so that half the summer was gone before he got a place to live in, and a sorry place it was. Before he got any food laid by, the rain filled up his house, and he had to spend another month in digging. And so, with one mishap and another, and no one to help him, the summer was soon almost gone, and he had no store for winter. When the first frost came, the selfish fellow came back, heartbroken and crestfallen, and begged to be taken into the colony again. All winter long he had to eat the bread that others had gathered, and he never afterward grumbled because his work was a little harder than that of others."

"You see," said the Garuly, "that the ants work together. What a shame it is that you should not be able even to play with your brothers and sister!"

And with that the little old man turned his one eye on Simon, and it shone like a coal of fire, and Simon thought he could feel it burning him. Just then an ant came up, who had heard the conversation, and asked the Garuly what it meant.

"He will not even play with his brothers," said the old man, looking fiercer than ever.

"Put him out!" cried the ant. And then a hundred ants cried, "put him out!" and they began tugging at him with all their might. One caught hold of his right foot and another of his left, one took him by the arm and another by the head, and as they were nearly as big as he was, they were about to carry him off bodily, when Simon suddenly awoke, and started up, to find that instead of the ants tugging at him, it was the other children, who had come to awaken him, for fear he would catch cold sleeping in the night air, and to find that what he thought was the one fiery eye of the Garuly, was the full moon s.h.i.+ning through the trees.

"There," said the Wee Chick, "that spoils the story. I don't want it to be a dream. What made 'em yake him up so twick?"

"Was he better afterward?" said Fairy.

"Yes, for the very next day he moved to the same playhouse with the rest of the children, and whenever he was selfish he would look around to see if the old Garuly was looking at him out of one eye."

THE JOBLILIES.

We have oak trees and green gra.s.s at our house, what many children in crowded cities do not get. Three little girls love to play in the green gra.s.s, with some pet chickens, and a white, pink-eyed rabbit for companions. Now, you must know that I am quite as fond of the oaks and the gra.s.s and the blue sky as Sunbeam, or Fairy, or the brown-faced Little Chick. And so it happens, when the day is hot, and the lazy breezes will not keep the house cool, that I just move my chair and table out by the lilac-bush that grows under the twin oaks, and then I think I can write better. And there I sit and watch the trains coming and going to and from the great, bustling city, only a dozen miles away, or listen to the singing of the robins while I write.

I was sitting thus one dull, hot afternoon, trying to write; but it was a lazy day; the robins had forgotten to sing, the little sparrows that live up in the oaks had stopped twittering, and the very honey bees were humming drowsily, when Chicken Little came up with a wreath of white clover around her head, and begged for a story. The older children wanted one, also, and so I had to tell one. To tell the truth, I was a little lazy myself, and so I willingly sat down in the gra.s.s among the children and began.

"Shall I tell about a lazy girl about as big as Chicken Little?" I asked.

"No, sir," she said; "tell about a lazy boy that was as big as Sunbeam."

Sunbeam laughed at this, and nodded her head for me to go on.

And so I began thus: "Little Lazy Larkin laughed and leaped, or longed and lounged the livelong day, and loved not labor, but liked leisure."

"Ha! ha!" cried the Wee Chick; "that sounds so funny!"

"It's got so many l's, that's the reason," said Fairy.

"Tell it right," said Sunbeam.

"Well, then," I said, "Larkin was an indolent juvenile, fond of mirthfulness and cachinatory and saltatory exercises--"

"I don't know what you mean!" said Fairy, just ready to get angry.

"Sech awful big words!" cried the Little Pullet; "they is as big--as big as punkins!"

"I guess that's what they call hifalutin," said Sunbeam; "now do tell it right."

And so I told it "right."

Larkin was an idle fellow, and was so utterly good-for-nothing, that he came to be called "Lazy Larkin." It is a dreadful thing to get a bad name when you are young. It sticks to you like a sand burr. Larkin would neither work nor study. He did not even like good, hearty play, for any great length of time, but was very fond of the play that boys call _mumble-the-peg_, because, as he said, you could sit down to play it. He fished a little, but if the fish did not bite at the first place, he sat down; he would not move, but just sat and waited for them to come to him.

He had gone out to Ba.s.s Lake to fish, one day, in company with some other boys, but they had put him out of the boat because he was too lazy to row when his turn came. The others were rowing about, trolling for pickerel, and he sat down on a point of land called "Duck Point," and went to fis.h.i.+ng. As the fish would not bite, he sat looking at them in the clear water, and wis.h.i.+ng that he was a fish--they had such a lazy time of it, lying there in the sun, or paddling idly around through the water. He saw a large pickerel lying perfectly still over a certain spot near the sh.o.r.e. When other fish came near the pickerel, it darted out and drove them off, and then paddled back to the same place again. Larkin dropped his bait near by, but the fish paid no attention to it, and, indeed, seemed to have nothing to do but to lie still in the same place.

"I wish I were a pickerel," said the lazy fellow; "I wouldn't have to carry in wood or pull weeds out of the garden, or feed the chickens, or get the multiplication table, or--or--do anything else;" and he gave one vast yawn, stretching his mouth so wide, and keeping it open so long, that it really seemed as if he never would get it together again. When it did shut, his eyes shut with it, for the fellow was too lazy to hold them open.

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"

Larkin heard some one say this, and raised up his head to see who it was.

Not finding any one about, he thought he must have been dreaming. So he just gave one more yawn, opening his mouth like the lid of an old tin coffee-pot, and keeping it open nearly a minute. Then he stretched himself upon the gra.s.s again.