Chapter 3

Soon they were following the stream, Jack catching his line and fly in the alders almost every time he cast.

Jack was too poor ever to have had any rod except an alder stick cut beside the stream, a short line and hook, and any worm or grasshopper he might find. He was wonderfully proud of the rod he held. The children meant to give it to him at the end of the summer. But Jack did not know this good news yet.

Ben Gile led the way, and almost every time he cast his fly there was a swirl, the end of the slender rod bent, there was a minute of excitement, and then upon the bank lay a beautiful speckled trout. On, on, on they went over the cool, green leaves and bright red berries of the partridge vine, and past raspberries wherever the sun had struck in through the heavy trees to ripen them. The stream was running more and more swiftly as they travelled up grade; quick water was growing more frequent and the pools deeper.

At last they came to a deep, round pool, and the guide said, "Now, Jim, you've the first try."

Jimmie cast his fly, there was a strike, a plunge, and out, out, out ran Jimmie's line. The boy's face turned quite pale. "What shall I do, sir?"

"You have a big one," answered Ben, calmly. "If you can play him long enough we may get him; otherwise he'll get your fly and line. Steady there, steady; let out a little more line, and now reel in a bit."

It seemed like hours to Jimmie as he let the line out and reeled it in again. Really, it was only a few minutes before the guide said: "Seems to be getting a little tired; bring him in closer. That's it. There!"

They had no landing-net with them, so at the last moment Ben Gile seized the line, and out came a two-pound trout. Jimmie's eyes were popping nearly out of his head, and Betty was jumping about and clapping her hands.

"Tired?" asked the old man.

"Some," said the boy.

"Well, this is the best place we shall find to eat our luncheon. We'll camp here. Now for the fire! Boys, get the wood and a small strip of birch bark! Then these two stones will hold the frying-pan. Now for the fish; we'll keep that big one of yours and I'll mount it for you, if you'd like me to. We'll eat the little fellows. After luncheon we must catch more for your mother, Betty, and for Jack to take home with him."

Soon the frying-pan was hot, and the trout were sizzling and curling up with the bacon in the pan. Never did a luncheon taste so good as that, with fried trout and bacon, and hard-boiled eggs, soda biscuits, and a mammoth apple pie. They listened to the fire crackling; they looked up into the shining trees; they watched the water beyond the pool go tumbling downhill.

Finally the old man said, "It's going to be a clear day to-morrow."

The children gazed up into the sky.

At this Ben Gile laughed. "Don't look at the sky, look at your plates."

Puzzled by this, the children did look at their plates.

"But there's nothing left to look at," said Jack.

"That's just it. There's an old saying that people who eat all their food make a clear day for the morrow. Now," he continued, "I'll smoke my pipe of peace before we go on. Just look at that fellow darting about over the pool!"

"Oh!" cried Betty, "it's a darning-needle, and it will sew up my mouth and my eyes--oh, oh!"

"Nonsense, child, that's silly. The dragon-fly is a very useful and a very harmless fellow. It's a pity that there are so many superstitions about it."

"There's another name for it," said Jack--"devil's darning-needle."

"And in the South the darkies call it the mule-killer, and believe it has power to bring snakes to life. It's all nonsense. They are not only harmless to human beings but also very useful, for they eat flies and mosquitoes at a great rate. Once upon a time I fed a dragon-fly forty house flies in two hours. And they eat beetles and spiders and centipedes. And sometimes they eat one another."

"Like the crickets?" said Betty.

"Yes, like the crickets. Just see that fellow dart about. The sharpest sort of angles. There, it has something! It caught that lace-wing in its leg-basket."

"Leg-basket!" exclaimed the children.

"Yes; it draws its six legs together, and makes a sort of basket right under its head. Then the dragon-fly devours what it catches by these strong-toothed jaws. It is a hungry fellow, it is."

The old man puffed away quietly for a few minutes, while the children watched the darning-needle and hoped Ben Gile would say something soon.

"Those scientists," he continued, "who are working on flying-machines could learn a good deal from this fellow. The dragon-fly is made for flight. A long, slender, tapering body that cuts the air, moved by four narrow, gauzy wings, and steered by that pointed abdomen. They eat, mate, and lay their eggs while they are flying. I don't know that they are still for more than a few seconds."

"Can you find their eggs?" asked Betty.

"Yes; their eggs are laid in the water or fastened to the stems of water plants. See that damsel fly, the slender, smaller, pretty-colored darning-needle? Well, it goes entirely under water, cuts a slit in the stem with the sharp end of the abdomen, and lays the eggs in the groove it has made. And they lay thousands of eggs."

"When they hatch out, what do they look like?" asked Jack, who grew daily more interested in the creatures about him, and who, in the years to come, was destined to be a great scientist.

"It looks a little like the mother," said Ben Gile, taking out his pipe, "but not much. It goes through a great many changes before it is really grown up. All told, the growth takes from a few months to a whole year. The young one, called a nymph, is an ugly little fellow, dingy black with six sprawling legs, two staring eyes, and a big lower lip which covers up its cruel face like a mask. It is a true ogre, lurking under stones and in rubbish at the bottom of the pond seeking whom it may devour. It eats the smaller and weaker nymphs."

"Oh," said Betty, studying the picture the guide had drawn, "what an ugly, ugly fellow!"

"It changes its skin a good many times, and sometimes it looks a little better while the skin is still clean and light gray. But it soon turns dingy again. See these three little leaf-shaped gills I've drawn?"

"They are like the screw on a steamer," commented Jimmie.

"They are, a little. Well, this chap uses these gills for the same purpose as the steamer uses its screw--to scull through the water."

"What happens when it changes?" asked Jack.

"After the nymph has its full growth, some sunny morning soon after daylight, it makes its way up out of the water on to a stem and waits quietly for the old dark skin to split. Then out crawls a soft-skinned creature with gauzy wings. But the body is so moist and weak it has to wait awhile for the warm sunshine to harden the skin and strengthen the muscle. When this is done the new dragon-fly, with its glistening body, flies out from the pond in the bright, warm light."

"Then does it live forever?" asked Betty.

"No; it dies after twenty-five to forty-five days of its flight. Here, Jack, catch that fellow!"

There was a wild scramble, but every time Jack just missed the dragon-fly. Finally Betty lent him her broad hat, and at last Jack caught the insect.

"Gee! aren't its eyes big?"

"And beautiful, too," said the guide. "They are made up of thousands of facets (a facet is just a small, plain surface) as many as thirty thousand facets in one eye. Some look up, some look down, some look out, some look in; so that there is nothing that escapes the sight of this hawk of the air. Look at the wings on this fellow, and look at the picture I drew for you of the nymph. Well, this fellow's wings begin in the nymph as tiny sacs, or pads, made by the pushing out of the wall of the body. Running all through between the two layers of the wing are thickened lines of chitin, which divide and subdivide, forming this fine network. In the new wing, protected by these thickenings, are air-tubes, which divide and branch into all parts of the wing. But as the wing reaches its full growth most of the air-tubes die." The guide paused. "We are talking too much and fishing too little. Time to go on. Put out the fire, boys. Be sure that it's out. Run water all around it. Now we're off!" And up, up, up the brook they went.

VII

THE SWIMMING-POOL

Two or three days after the fishing expedition the boys had gathered together at the swimming-pool, Ben Gile with them. They had been racing, and climbing trees, and were very warm. "Come, boys," said the guide, "let's sit down a minute before you go into the water. It won't do to bathe when you're too warm. Look round on the stones under the water and see what you can find."

"Look at this," called Peter; "it's just like a sponge."

"It is a fresh-water sponge."

"I didn't suppose sponges grew in these parts at all," said Jimmie.

"Oh yes, there are many of them in the ponds."

"See this, sir," shouted Jack; "what funny little legs it has!"

"That's a May-fly or shad-fly nymph. He was hiding carefully under that stone and keeping out of the way of the dragon-fly nymph, who would so gladly gobble him up."

"It's prettier," said Jimmie, "than that dragon-fly nymph you drew a picture of."

"So it is. See, here on each side of its body are these fine little gill-plates, moving, moving, moving, so that they may get as much fresh air as possible out of the water. Each gill-plate is a tiny sac, and within these are the fine branches of the air-tubes. It's wonderful the way these creatures breathe."

"Don't they breathe just the way we do?" asked Jack.

"No; throughout the body of an insect is a system of tiny white tubes. Some day we'll look at these tubes under the microscope, and you will see that they are made up of rings. From end to end of the tube is a fine thread of chitin twisted in a close spiral like a spring. It is these little coils which look like rings. The coiled thread holds the little tube open so that the air may pass readily. But your little fellow, Jack, cannot have pores on the sides of the body like the last nymph. It lives under water, and the water would get into its tubes; instead, it has tracheal gills."

"That's a pretty big word," said Peter, looking up at the guide. He was growing impatient, and wished to begin the swim. If he had known what that swim was to mean to him, probably he would not have been so anxious.

"They aren't so hard to understand; they are just little oval sacs, inside of which is a limb of the air tube divided into tiny branches. The fresh air in the water passes through the thin wall of the gill and is taken by the air-tubes to all parts of the body, while the impure air passes out in the water. This is all that breathing means in any creature--a changing of impure for pure air."

"Then that is what my nymph is doing," asked Jack, "when it wiggles its gills so?"

"Just that. Your May-fly nymph, Jack, hatched from a tiny egg first. But it grows rapidly, and splits and sheds its skin sometimes as often as twenty times. During the last few months wings appear, which grow a little larger with each shedding of the skin. Finally, after three years--sometimes three years spent in growing and hiding away from its enemies--the little nymph floats up to the surface of the water. In a few minutes the old skin splits along the back, and from it flies forth a frail little May-fly. Its body is very soft and delicate. Its four wings are of a gauzy texture. At the tip of the body are two long, fine hairs. Its jaws are small and weak, but the life of this little creature is so short that it never eats. Up it flies into the air with thousands of its brothers and sisters, whirls in a mad dance for a few hours, then falls exhausted to the ground to die.

"Well, now I think we'd better go into the water," ended the guide. "You boys can go in just as you are." For three little boys had been sitting undressed in the bright sunshine. "Good for their pores," Ben Gile had told them, which is all very true.

Soon there was the greatest splashing and paddling and shouts of, "My goodness, isn't the water cold!" "Can you swim this way?" "How far can you go, anyway?"

Jimmie and the guide were swimming around near the shore when suddenly, two hundred feet ahead of them, they saw Peter disappear in what they supposed was shallow water. Jack was half-way the distance between the guide and Peter. It did not take him an instant to realize what had happened. But before he could get to the place where Peter had gone down, the lad had come up, struggled, and gone down again. As he came up once more Jack caught him by his curly hair, turned over on his back, holding Peter's head high out of the water, and swam calmly for the shallow place. Once there, the old man took Peter in his arms and hurried to shore, where they rolled him until they had the water out of him. Not a word was said, and modest, quiet Jack did not seem to think that he had been brave.

When Peter opened his eyes he said, "Guess my pores weren't in the right place."

VIII

THE RAINY DAY

It was a rainy day. Poor Betty flattened her little nose against the window-panes of Turtle Lodge a dozen times. But outside all she could see were just the long, straight lines of the down-coming rain and an empty road leading downhill to the edge of the pond; all she could hear was the drum of the water upon the roof. Inside, Jimmie was developing films in his laboratory, and was not in the least interested in what Betty might be doing.

"Oh, mother," called Betty, "I am so tired; there isn't anything to do!"

"Why don't you sew on a dress for Belinda?" asked Mrs. Reece.

"Belinda has too many clothes; she has more than I have, mother, and she's a naughty dolly to-day."

"Well, let me see--get Lizzie to let you make cake."

"Lizzie's cross, and I'm afraid to. I wish the guide were here. He's never cross, and never too busy to tell you something that's interesting." Betty looked out of the window. "He's coming now! Goody! Goody!"

When old Ben Gile reached the steps there was a little girl dancing inside the door and still shouting "Goody!"

"What's this?"

"You'll tell me a story, won't you?"

"Tell you a story! Dear, dear, I never knew such a little greedy for stories. I've brought you something."

Betty's face was shining now. She had forgotten the rain, the dreary day, cross Lizzie, and everything. Ben Gile took a box out of his pocket. "What is it?" she asked.

"I have a box full of little elves for you."

"Elves!" exclaimed Betty.

"Yes, little elves, little brownies."

"Come into the study, where there is a fire." Mrs. Reece led the way. "Then you can tell us all about these elves." They sat down around the fire, and Mrs. Reece continued, "Don't you think it would be fun to pop corn while we're hearing about the brownies?"

Betty was delighted, and ran for a corn-popper, and soon there was the merry sound of crackling wood, popping corn, and happy voices--all sounds that proved so tempting that before long Jimmie joined the others.

"My little elf is a bug," began the hermit.

"A _bug_ an elf?"

"Yes, a bug; and when he doesn't look like an elf, he looks like a king with a high crown on his head or a naughty boy with a dunce cap."

"Let's see him, please," said Betty.

The old man opened his box. Inside lay a lot of little creatures with backs like beechnuts. "See, look through the lens!"

Betty laughed. "Oh, aren't they funny! The eyes are so big and so far apart."

"And the lines on their heads make them look as if they were gazing through heavy-bowed spectacles," said Mrs. Reece.

"There is a very wise man, and his name is Mr. Comstock, who says that Nature must have been in a joking mood when she made these little tree and leaf hoppers, they are so impish and knowing-looking. Ah, they are the naughty brownies of the insect world!"

"Betty, Betty," called Mrs. Reece, "your popcorn is burning!"

"Mother, I don't care to pop any more; let me just listen now. What makes them bad?"

"Well, they are born with a naughty desire to suck everything they can get their tiny sucking beaks upon. They hop around in great numbers on the fruit trees and pierce the leaves with their sharp beaks. Then, with a tubelike lower lip, they suck up the sap. They also make slits in the twigs in which to lay their eggs. In the following spring the eggs hatch, and there is a fresh supply of tree-hoppers ready to begin the mischief their parents left off only when they died."

"And what is the difference between the leaf-hoppers and the tree-hoppers?" asked Mr. Reece.

"Not much. They are cousins--cousins in naughtiness. The leaf-hoppers are a great nuisance. Every year they destroy from one-fourth to one-fifth of the grass that springs up. They also suck the sap of the rose, the grape-vine, and of many grains. These sturdy fellows live during the winter by hiding under the rubbish in the fields and vineyards, ready when the warm spring does come to begin their naughty work."

"What makes a little fellow like this able to do so much damage?" asked Jimmie, who had come in, his hands all stained with chemicals.

"Well, it is well covered by this horny substance called chitin, and then it is very active. You see, the chitin acts both as armor-plate for the soft parts and also as a firm support to the many muscles. As many as two thousand separate, tiny muscles have been counted in a certain caterpillar. That shows how very active insects are."

"And they all have such big eyes they can see everything," said Betty.

"So they have--bigger eyes than the old wolf of the story had."

"You remember, I told you about the thousands of facets in the big eyes of the darning-needle? Not contented with these large eyes, most insects have three small eyes arranged in the form of a triangle on the front of the head."

"This bug has feelers, too," said Jimmie.

"So it has. Insects use these feelers, or antennæ, for all sorts of purposes--some for touch, some for smell, some for hearing. Ants exchange greetings by touching antennæ, and recognize a friend or an enemy by the odor. The antennæ of a male mosquito are covered with fine hairs. When Mrs. Mosquito sings, all the tiny hairs on Mr. Mosquito's feelers are set in motion, and he becomes aware of Mrs. Mosquito."

Mrs. Reece laughed. "That's a new kind of romance!"

"Mother, what's a romance?" asked Betty.

"You'll know, dear, in time."

"Notice this imp's mouth," said the guide. "It's made for sucking. But there's a great difference in the mouths of insects: some are made for biting, some for lapping, some for piercing, and some for sucking. The butterfly, which lives on nectar in the depths of the flowers, has a long, coiled tube which scientists call a proboscis. This it unrolls and buries in the throat of the flower. Mrs. Mosquito has a file and pump, for it is she, and not her husband, who does all the singing and biting. The male mosquito has nothing more than a mouth for sucking nectar. And I told you about the biting jaws of the locust with which it nibbles grass and leaves."

"And does the tree-hopper breathe the way the locust does--through those pores on the side?"

"Yes, child," said the old man, "and the air-pores are protected by fine hairs which surround the openings, just the way the hairs in your nostrils keep the dust from getting up your nose and into your throat."

"Things in the bugs," said Betty, "are so like us."

"The world becomes more and more like one great whole as you grow older," added Ben Gile. "Those are interesting elves I've been telling you about, aren't they?"

"I didn't know bug elves could be so interesting."

"Now run and get us some of the fresh cake Lizzie has been baking," said Mrs. Reece. "I hope it will taste as good as it smells."

IX

THE PRIZE

There were two canoes going up the little river which led out from the pond. In the first were Ben Gile with Betty, Hope, and Jack. In the second Jimmie and Peter paddled Mrs. Reece. They had trout rods, although they did not plan to fish very much, and well-filled luncheon-baskets, magnifying-glasses, cameras, boxes, and various other things.

In two weeks they were to go on a camping expedition, and to-day's trip was taken chiefly to find a good place for the first night's stop.

The children were all excitement about the camping, which was to be the last jollity of their happy summer, and they asked so many questions about what they were to take with them, and they asked the same questions over so many times, that at last Mrs. Reece put her hands on her ears and called to the guide, who was paddling vigorously ahead.

"Well," he called back, "a frying-pan and an axe, and perhaps a tent." He allowed his canoe to drop nearer Mrs. Reece's. "What naughty children you are," he continued, "to bother the life out of your poor mother! I know of some other children, too, who are very naughty. I see one flying now."

"That pretty little thing," exclaimed Betty, "with the gauzy wings?"

"Yes, that pretty little thing; its wings have many, many veins. When Lace-Wing is a baby and is called a larva, it does not look like this, for its jaws are strong and very sharp. After it has eaten and grown for some time it makes a house for itself, where it rolls up for a nap. While it is lying very still in this little house many things are happening."

"What happens?" asked Jack.

"Well, it is changing from a baby to a grown-up, and while it is growing up into an insect it is called a pupa. Don't mistake this for papa--it does not look like your papa at all."

Betty thought this was very funny, because her father was a great big man over six feet tall.

"After its wings are made and it looks just like its mamma, Lace-Wing crawls out of its house and flies away."

"Has it any cousins, like the locust?" asked Betty.

"Yes, it has cousins; the ant-lion and caddis-fly both belong to this family. But little Lace-Wing, with its beautiful green body, gauzy wings, and golden eyes, is the most graceful member of the family."

"How do they live when they are babies?" asked Hope.

"When they are babies," said Ben Gile, opening his eyes wide and speaking in a loud, deep voice, "they go about like lions seeking whom they may devour."

Betty was frightened.

"No, no, child," said Mrs. Reece, "not a real lion."

"Just an aphis-lion," explained the guide, his eyes twinkling. "They are called aphis-lions because they are very cruel to the little green plant-lice I told you about. You remember, the plant-lice live on plants, and with their sucking beaks pump the sap from the plants. The aphis-lions crawling over the plants come across the little aphid. Quick as a wink they stick their sharp claws in the soft body of the plant-louse and drink the blood with their sharp-pointed jaws. They are very fond of eggs, too, and Mamma Lace-Wing is careful of her eggs, because she knows the mischievous ways of her children."

"What does Mamma Lace-Wing do with her eggs?" inquired Mrs. Reece.

"Each egg which she lays has a tiny stem, and the stems are fastened to a leaf or twig. When the babies hatch out they crawl down onto the leaf and hunt around for something to eat. Perhaps if they knew more they would crawl up the little egg stems and eat their own brothers and sisters."

"Oh, what cannibals!" cried Betty.

"Yes, it is not pleasant, this Fiji Island of the insects, but it is their nature."

"They do seek their meat from God," murmured Mrs. Reece.