Bert Wilson at the Wheel Part 6

From being a spot of perfect peace and quiet, the mound suddenly burst into life. From numberless gates a swarm of ants issued forth and rushed about here and there to find out the cause of this invasion. The weight of Shorty's body and his movements as he composed himself for sleep had aroused them to a sense of danger and they poured out in thousands. Soon the ground was covered with little patches of black and red ants, and as though by common consent they began to surround the unconscious Shorty.

Some crept up his legs, others his arms, while others climbed over his collar and slipped inside.

First, an arm twitched violently. Then a sleepy hand stole down and scratched his leg. The boys were bursting with laughter, and Tim grew black in the face as he crowded his handkerchief into his mouth. Shorty shook his head as a horse does when a fly lights on it. Again he twitched and this time seemed to realize that there was something wrong.

Still half asleep, he snapped:

"Aw, why don't you fellows quit your kidding? Stop tickling me with that----"

A yell ended the sentence as a nip more vicious than usual brought Shorty to his feet, this time wide awake beyond all question. He cast one glance at the boys, who now made no pretence of restraint but roared with laughter. Then he saw the swarm of ants surrounding him and took in the situation. He tore his hat from his head, his coat from his shoulders, shook off his tormentors and spinning around like a dancing dervish, dashed off toward the brook. A moment later there was a splash and they heard Shorty blowing, spluttering, diving, rubbing, until finally he had rid himself of the swarms that clung closer to him than a brother.

At last he succeeded and came up the bank. Before resuming his clothes, he had to take each garment separately and search every seam and crease to make sure that not a single ant remained. Then he came back into the group like a raging lion. His temper never was any of the best, and the sudden awakening from sleep, the stings and ticklings of the invaders, and perhaps most of all, the unrestrained laughter of the boys had filled his cup to the brim. He "saw red," as the saying is, and regardless of age and size was rus.h.i.+ng toward the rest with doubled up fists and rage in his heart, when d.i.c.k caught him by the wrists and held him in his strong grasp until his fury had spent itself somewhat and he began to get control of himself.

"Phil," said d.i.c.k--he never called him Shorty, and at this moment that recollection helped to sober the struggling boy--"remember that the first duty of boy or man is to control his temper. The boys didn't mean any harm. It looked to them like a splendid joke, and perhaps we let it go a little too far. I am really to blame more than any one else because I am older and in charge of the squad. I'm awfully sorry, Phil, and I beg your pardon."

The kindly tone and sincere apology were not lost on Phil, who was not without a sense of humor, which through all his anger began to struggle to the surface. The other boys, too, thoughtless and impulsive though they might be, were sound and kind at heart, and following d.i.c.k's example crowded about Phil and joined in the apology. The most flaming anger must melt before such expressions of regard and goodwill and Phil was at last compelled to smile sheepishly and say that it was all right.

"You're a sport, Phil, all right," called out Frank, and at this highest of commendations from a boy's point of view, the last vestige of Phil's resentment faded away.

"Well, anyway, fellows," he said, "I don't bear any grudge against you, but I am sure going to get even with those pesky ants. I never did care much for ants anyway. I've been told so often to 'go to the ant, thou sluggard,' that now I'm going to them for fair, and what I do to them will be a plenty."

As he said this, he turned toward the ant hill as though to demolish it, but d.i.c.k put up a friendly hand:

"No, Phil," said he, "you wouldn't destroy a wonderful and beautiful palace, would you?"

"Palace," said Phil in amazement, thinking for a moment that d.i.c.k was "stringing" him. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just what I say," returned d.i.c.k; "a wonderful and beautiful palace.

There is a queen there and she walks about every day in state, surrounded by a throng of courtiers. There are princesses there that are taken out daily to get the air, accompanied by a governess, exactly as you have seen a group of boarding-school girls walking out with their teachers.

Surrounding the palace is a city where there are hundreds of carpenters and farmers and sentinels and soldiers. If you waited round a while, you would see the farmers going out to milk their cows----"

At that point, d.i.c.k was interrupted by a roar of laughter that burst from every boy at once. They had listened in growing amazement that had rapidly become stupefaction, but this was really too much. What was the matter with d.i.c.k? Was it a joke, a parable, a fairy story? They might be kids all right, but there was a limit to everything, and when d.i.c.k talked of ants going out to milk the cows--well! It was up to him to explain himself or prove his statement, and that they felt sure he could never do.

d.i.c.k waited good-naturedly while they pelted him with objections and plied him with questions. Then he took from his kit a strong magnifying gla.s.s and told them that he was going to prove to them all what he had said.

"He laughs best who laughs last," he said, "and I am going to show you that all I said is true. That is," he modified, "I cannot _prove_ everything just now, as I would have to destroy this wonderful palace if I were to try to show you how marvelous it is and how perfect in all its appointments. But what we don't see ourselves has been seen time and time again by hundreds of wise and truthful men, and their testimony is as strong as though it were given under oath in a court of law."

"Well," said Frank, "I'm willing to take everything else on faith, but I'm afraid I'd have to see the milking done myself in order to believe it."

"All right," said d.i.c.k, "as it happens that is just the thing I can show you more easily than anything else."

The boys crowded eagerly around him.

CHAPTER VII

THE ANTS GO MILKING

"You know," said d.i.c.k, as the boys threw themselves down at the side of the mound and looked at it with an entirely new interest, "if these were African ants, you wouldn't be taking any such liberties with them.

Instead of hanging around this mound you would be running away like all possessed. And if you didn't make tracks in a hurry the only thing left here would be your skeleton picked as clean as the one you saw the other day in old Dr. Sanford's office."

"What?" cried Jim, "do you mean to say that I would run away from a little thing like an ant. Not on your life, I wouldn't."

"Let's see," said d.i.c.k, "you'd run away from a boa-constrictor, wouldn't you?"

"Who wouldn't," retorted Jim.

"Well, if you'd run away from the boa-constrictor, and he'd run away from the ants, where do _you_ get any license to face the ants."

"Do you mean to say that those monster snakes are afraid of such tiny things?"

"I should say they were," replied d.i.c.k, "the ants go from place to place through the great African forest in countless numbers, millions at a time, a regular army of them. Nothing can stand before them. They strip every shrub, eat every blade of gra.s.s. They swarm over every living thing they find in their way. Sometimes they come across a snake unawares, and climb all over him. He squirms and twists and rushes away, trying to brush them off, against the bushes. At last he turns and bites frantically, but they never let up. They actually eat him alive, and in less than ten minutes they pa.s.s on leaving his bones picked clean as a whistle. The natives take their wives and children and flee for their lives whenever they see an army of ants approaching."

"But that, of course, has nothing to do with these little American neighbors of ours. They are perfectly harmless and though they are fierce sc.r.a.ppers among themselves, inflict no injury on any one else.

And there is nothing in the whole animal or insect world, except perhaps the bees, that have a society and government so much like that of men."

"In one respect they are like their African brothers and that is in their fondness for travel. Every once in a while they make up their minds to emigrate and then they fly in swarms of millions----"

"What?" interrupted Frank, "do you mean to say they fly? I never knew that an ant had wings."

"Of course they have," said d.i.c.k, "they often have to cross rivers to get to their new home. How could they do that without wings?"

"Oh, I don't know," hummed Shorty:

"The bed bug has no wings at all But he gets there just the same."

A rather severe glance from d.i.c.k quenched Phil's exuberant spirits which had all come back to him since his ducking.

"Now," continued d.i.c.k, "these swarms are sometimes so vast that they darken the sun in certain localities. Men working on high buildings have been surrounded and almost blinded by them. While these emigrations last they are a bother, if not a peril, and the only ones that are really happy are the fish in the brooks and rivers over which they pa.s.s.

Sometimes the surface is fairly black with them and the trout and little troutlings have the time of their lives. Once the flight is ended, however, and the new locality chosen, the wings disappear. Nature has no use for needless things and from that time on the air knows them no more. The carpenter ants get busy right away. The place is marked off as accurately as a surveyor marks out a plot in the suburbs of a city. The queen ant is given a royal room apart from all the others. She is a good mother and takes the best of care of her little ones. As they grow older, they in turn help the queen to care for their little brothers and sisters. They are excessively neat and clean in their personal habits.

They spend hours preening and combing and cleaning until they are immaculate----"

"Regular dudes," muttered Jim.

"Well," said Tom, "that's something that will never be laid up against you, Jim."

Jim, who indeed had a hard time keeping up to a high ideal of cleanliness, and whose hair was usually tumbled while his nails too often were draped in mourning, looked a little confused, and while he was thinking up something to hurl back at Tom, d.i.c.k went on.

"There is one thing, however, about the ants that I don't admire. They like to get somebody else to do their work. A certain number of their own colony are 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' for the rest.

Indeed, the aristocrats among them get so lazy after a while that they will not even feed themselves. The workers not only have to hustle for the grub, but actually have to feed it to the lords and dukes. And talking of hustling for grub, just look here."

The boys followed the direction of d.i.c.k's finger, and there coming up a little beaten path they saw a procession of ants dragging along a big fat caterpillar. It had evidently put up a good fight, judging from the numbers that had been necessary to capture it, but they had proved too strong. A little convulsive movement showed that it was not yet quite dead, but it no longer made any resistance. The formic acid that the ants secrete had partly paralyzed it and made defence impossible. There was an almost comical disproportion between its large helpless bulk and the tiny size of its conquerors, but this was a case where numbers counted. The victors all pulled like good fellows and pa.s.sing through one of the entrances of the mound finally dragged their booty into the inner cave.

"Another thing," said d.i.c.k, when the keenly interested boys had again gathered about him, "the red ants are slaveholders. When their working force has been weakened or diminished, they get a big army together and raid some colony of black ants a few hundred feet or yards distant in order to carry them away as slaves. There is nothing haphazard or slouchy about the way they go about it. Everything is arranged as carefully and precisely as in the case of an American or European power getting ready to go to war. At a given signal the troops come out and get in order of battle. There is perfect order and system everywhere.

When there is a very large army, a sort of hum or buzz arises from it almost as though they were beating drums to inspire the soldiers for battle. They march forward in perfect time and dash upon the enemy with irresistible fury. The black ants through their scouts have been told of the enemy's approach and have made all the preparation they can to beat them off. The infant ants, together with their household goods, have been tucked away in upper galleries where they can see the fight but not be in it."

"Reserved seats as it were," murmured Frank.