Part 4

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

“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:

+--------------------------+ | T A T F | | H N H R | | I T R E | | S H O E | | O U | | I N G F | | S Y H R | | O | | T A A M | | O N N | | T Y H | | P A | | A N R | | S I M | | S G | | H | | T | +--------------------------+

AN ANT VENTURE IN GOING UP

“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 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 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 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 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 the thing that had carried him there would eat him if he so much as wiggled a feeler.

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

EXPLORING A TREE

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.

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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 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.

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 of course you know it was because he had the pass that said:

+--------------------------+ | T A T F | | H N H R | | I T R E | | S H O E | | O U | | I N G F | | S Y H R | | O | | T A A M | | O N N | | T Y H | | P A | | A N R | | S I M | | S G | | H | | T | +--------------------------+

A VENTURE OF MOTTOES

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 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 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.