Little Tom Part 8

It was touching to see the little fellows, looking around in surprise, falling clumsily about and throwing themselves eagerly on the sweet porridge. From the hall led two other corridors, sloping downward, and, as Tom was looking into them, Mirmex came to him and said: These are safety exits. When danger threatens, through one of these the workers carry the chrysalises outside, where they crawl on the flowers and the gra.s.s, as our enemies cannot reach these heights. Through the second, they can go into the depths of the town and there hide the chrysalises in the secret chambers.

As Mirmex led him through the first exit which opened at the opposite end of the town, directly into the highgrowing gra.s.s, which the ants had spared, Tom wondered what sort of enemies threatened the ants. As they walked along Mirmex enlightened him.

Since unremembered time, the ants have had a great enemy, the Redheads.

They are larger than we, ugly, red fellows and cruel, rough fighters.

From early childhood they do nothing but perfect themselves in fighting and robbing. They do not understand work and do not even know how to eat by themselves. The have long jaws sharp as a lance, with which, at one stroke, they can pierce an enemy's head. Their slaves do all their work, build their town, care for their children, gather their stock and also feed them. The slaves are in greater numbers than their masters and could let them die from hunger, yet they never revolt, having no idea of the freedom and liberty of the ants in their independent realm. That is because they have never lived in freedom. The Redheads are not interested in their grown-up enemies, whom they slay, but they steal the chrysalises, which they give into the care of the slaves. These the slaves care for, bringing up the little ants and teaching them how to work for their masters. The youths know nothing of the life of the nation from which they came, only knowing how to work for their masters and their descendants.

You see how efficiently one works here with us. Everyone knows exactly his task and does it unceasingly until his last breath, and all work for the good of the community. The workman gladly performs his task. He is modest and knows neither pleasure nor idleness. His only consolation is the proper result of his labors, but he feels himself free, knowing that he is creating strong and healthy descendants and is insuring the freedom and liberty of the whole nation.

Our descendants would prefer to die rather than serve foreign masters.

This the Redheads well know and, therefore, they take the ungrown children, who know nothing of the world, and train them as their slaves.

Many, many thousands of our people are serving them truly and devotedly, but are forever lost to us.

But why do you not instruct them, asked Tom excitedly? Why do you not explain how degrading it is to deny one's own people and serve strangers, altogether abandoning one's own nation?

That is all in vain, replied Mirmex. Who grows up a slave will remain a slave. They are quite satisfied with their fate and do not understand why they would be better off with us. If they should leave their masters, they would not feel happy with us.

Then why do you not prepare yourselves and not let them capture the chrysalises? Why do you not perfect yourselves in fighting and kill them when they come against you? Little Tom was almost beside himself with anger and longed to lead an expedition against the Redheads and destroy them, but Mirmex remained cool and undisturbed.

They are stronger in body and more skilled in fighting, he answered.

If we wanted to ruin them, we should have to give up our manner of living; we should have to devote ourselves to fighting, warring and gaining skill in arms. Who among us would then attend to the agricultural work? Then we should be like them, murderers and robbers, living only on the work of others, and that we do not wish to be. We try to defend ourselves and at the same time not change our mode of life. We build our towns far from the Redheads and, if necessary, would rather move away from them. We station guards over our entire territory and, if we are attacked, meet the enemy bravely. We also know how to fight. Our workmen are skilful and when the worst comes, they become very good fighters. We have often defeated the Redheads and driven them away from our town; but we do not attack their towns or rob them. The Redheads avoid our large towns and attack those that are young and newly established. Only when they lack slaves, do they attack our princ.i.p.al communities. As for us, we are satisfied to stand up for our rights, defend our liberty and our young ones, and live according to our destiny.

Little Tom looked admiringly at Mirmex, who was talking quietly and earnestly, but Tom felt his genuine loyalty to his native town and his pa.s.sionate love for freedom.

In the meantime, they came to a lonely part at the back of the town, where the corridors were ruined and the surface covered with dust. Tom asked in surprise, why such a large part of the town was left in ruins.

Mirmex explained that this was the oldest portion which had been well founded, but, overhead in the pine tree, something had happened. A branch had been torn off by the wind, so that the town was not properly protected from the rain and the chrysalises were threatened by the dampness. Therefore, they started to build new halls a little farther along, where it was drier and better sheltered, until the town was higher and larger, into which they would then move their stores and the chrysalises.

Then Mirmex asked Tom to go with him and look at the storehouses; so they went back to the town and pa.s.sed through winding corridors to great rooms, where they met many ants carrying heavy burdens. Tom saw the rooms piled clear to the top with little grains dried and cleaned. In one room many ants were sitting, some cleaning the grains, others blowing away the chaff and still others stacking up the finished product. Others gathered up the refuse and carried it outside the ant hill.

These, said Mirmex, are our granaries and our stores for bad seasons.

There are enough supplies here to support the town for a long while.

Then they went to a hall higher up, where the porridge for the chrysalises was being prepared, and there Tom saw workers hurrying out of the nests with empty coverings of the chrysalises. He thought how this soft silk used to be brought by the gnome merchants to his father and how, at home, they were woven into precious silken garments.

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From the granaries and kitchens, they came to the stalls, where Tom saw green bugs, fat and lazy, crawling under a low arch. From the back of each bug extended two little tubes, through which the ants were sucking as they tickled the bugs with their feelers. Tom was surprised again, when Mirmex explained that, through these tubes, the bugs let out a sweet juice, of which the ants are very fond. We keep many of them here, continued Mirmex, for the workers engaged in the town. Those who are working outside, have their large stalls on the flowers.

Tom asked why the bugs on the flowers did not run away and Mirmex told him, that where there were enough bugs on a flower, the ants surrounded it with trenches and ramparts, so that the bugs were in captivity and could not escape. There they stay in their captivity and do not have to be fed and the workmen do not have to return to the town to drink, he added.

Little Tom sincerely admired the whole arrangement of the ants town.

This pleased Mirmex. Let us go a little further, he continued. I will next show you our hot-beds. They went along a narrow corridor, and Tom, touching the walls, found them damp. They pa.s.sed through rooms that were very hot, until they reached a low chamber which was filled with damp, round leaves, while the walls were covered with mildew. Tom did not care to go into this damp hot bed, but Mirmex laughed.

Do you remember, he inquired, how you helped us build a crossing over the strip of glue on the rose-bush in the garden? At that time you were curious to know why we were biting out little circles from the rose leaves and were carrying them away. Here you see the leaves piled up in heaps. In this part of the mound grows a mushroom. Here it is damp. The water comes from a near-by mossfield and the dampness is good for the mushroom mildew. It puts out little thin stalks that grow up from the rose leaves.

Tom noticed that the heaps were covered with long stalks which surrounded them like gra.s.s. While he was looking at them, many ants came into the room. One examined the stalks to see if they were sufficiently grown and then they started to work. One after the other, they bit the shoots on the end. Mirmex conducted Tom into the second room, so as not to be in the way of the workers. There were no longer stalks on the leaves but, in their place, stunted, round bulbs as if the heap were covered with pin heads.

If we should allow the shoots to grow, remarked Mirmex, they would fill the whole room and be of no use; therefore, we must bite them on the end, and so the shoots are stunted and grow into the broad, juicy bulbs which are our best food.

Tom tasted one or two of the bulbs and found them very good. They were slightly sweet and full of juice. He envied the ants their clever mode of living. He doubted if he would be able to bring the Ladybirds to such a degree of perfection; but when they were leaving the halls, he thought that, after all, the life of the Ladybirds was better, more beautiful, fresher, and more joyous, being spent in pleasure under the great, bright sky, without troubles, without heavy labor, and full of happiness and merriment.

He thought that he would speak to Mirmex about it and ask him why the ants have no pleasure and merriment, if life is so serious that all the time it is necessary to worry and work and be on guard and not to have one moment of relief or time for one's own pleasure.

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CHAPTER NINE.

THE WAR OF THE ANTS.

THE PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.

LITTLE TOM BECOMES THE COMMANDER OF THE BLACK TOWN.

THE AMBUSCADE OF THE REDHEADS.

LITTLE TOM'S VICTORY. THE PURSUIT OF THE ENEMY.

LITTLE TOM TAKEN CAPTIVE.

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When they came to the square before the town, Tom told Mirmex of his doubts, but before the latter could answer they perceived an ant hurrying at great speed out of the moss and barely succeeding in staggering around them to the gate. Mirmex looked after him in astonishment, but, at this moment, a crowd of the workmen ran out, quickly divided themselves into groups, and took their stations on the roads in every direction.

The whole town was swarming with workmen, hurrying out, and with the nurses who were quickly carrying the chrysalises from the place where they had been sunning themselves, inside the mound. Some exciting message had set the town in an uproar.

Mirmex immediately disappeared through the gate and Tom was left to look on the excited turmoil. It seemed to him the wildest disorder, that every one was hustling and running around, as if bereft of reason; but he soon saw that all this bustling was part of a carefully directed plan and that something was being carried out that he did not understand.

From the gates were coming ants who stretched themselves in long, well-ordered lines and then disappeared in the moss. Work in the town ceased, and at once the whole surface was deserted; but from all the roads, crowds of ants came quickly into the square, where they formed themselves in battle array.

Tom finally recognized that the preparations were for battle. At that moment, Mirmex came up to him and started leading him into the town, telling him that news had come of a marauding expedition of the Redheads.

The guards on the borders had seen some Redheads spying about and had caught some black slaves, from whom they learned that, since early morning, the Redheads had been planning a most formidable expedition. At first, they thought the Redheads were planning to attack a small town by the brook, in the forest, but they sent out some spies of their own who came upon a great crowd of Redheads gathering by the stumps on the clearing leading to Black Town, and they at once sent in the messenger to give the alarm.

This will be a battle such as we have never seen, said Mirmex. The Redheads have all gone into this attack in which they have formed great armies. In all probability, they wish to rob us, not only of our children but of our large harvests. They themselves live deep in the valley, where there is little gra.s.s and the country is not rich, while they know that we are close to the fields and gardens from which we have, this year, gathered great stores of food. This time it will be a fight for life or death. Fortunately, we have time to send out messengers and collect all our strength and to form our army.

Tom was trembling with excitement and asked to be allowed to fight in the first rank and to help in the victory over the robbers. Mirmex thanked him. You will be most welcome, he said, but you cannot go into the field, for you do not know our way of fighting. It is not a question of personal bravery but of a sound plan based on our knowledge of the ground. We are not afraid of the result, for we are well prepared and all that we need is the full strength of our numbers to equalize the greater weight and the better fighting equipment of our enemies. The only thing we fear is the treacherous attack of some reserve force, for the Redheads are very crafty and know how to conceal their plans and we are quite likely to be attacked in the town while our forces are all in the field.

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We ought to leave a garrison to defend the town. Therefore, we will ask you to remain for its defense, in which case a small group with you will be sufficient. Then we will not fear that anything will happen behind our backs, while we are out in the field.

Tom thanked Mirmex for this confidence and promised him that he would defend the town to his last breath.

In the meantime, the last divisions were disappearing in the moss and in the gra.s.s. The town became quiet; only some guards were running on the stones at the top and crawling up the flowers in the square. A small garrison remained at the crossroads and watched the last of the soldiers marching toward the depths of the wood. Mirmex quickly said good-bye and also disappeared. Tom returned to the town, as he wanted to mount to the top and take a look around the country.

Thus a terrible war started which completely changed Tom's fate.