The Sun's Babies Part 12

"That's right," called a merry voice from the next bluebell. Tinyboy looked and saw a little fellow in a bright blue suit laughing up at him. "The blue lady is my playmate," he said, "and you are not to take her away."

So Tinyboy and the b.u.t.terfly went on. By and by they came to a big red poppy with a black velvet floor. "Why, that is just like my house,"

Tinyboy said when he saw it. "Is it my house?"

"No," said the b.u.t.terfly. "Your house is at the other side of the garden. Tinygirl lives here."

The b.u.t.terfly stood on the edge of the poppy, and Tinyboy looked in.

There sat a dear little Tinygirl on the doorstep, swinging her feet just as Tinyboy had done in his house, and looking just as lonely as he had been. She was dressed all in red silk, and her wee cap of black velvet was just like his.

She smiled at Tinyboy and Tinyboy smiled at her, and said: "Will you play with me?"

"Of course I will," she said at once. "Come into my house and play ball."

THE MOSQUITO BABIES

On the top of the pool floated a dainty raft of mosquito eggs, glued together by their careful mother to keep them from sinking. In a day or two tiny wrigglers came out of the eggs, and began to dart about in every direction to find their food.

They were the queerest little water-babies! Their bodies were long and jointed, and from every jointed bit little bundles of swimming hairs stuck out on both sides. They had feelers on their heads, and they breathed through their tails--of all strange places! When they wanted a fresh supply of air they stood head downwards in the water, with tails stuck up to breathe.

How those babies did wriggle about, to be sure! They seemed never to be still for a moment. They would take in air, then sink to the bottom of the pool and draw in tinier creatures than themselves with their mouth hairs, then, having made their meal, wriggle up again to the top.

And every movement was so wonderfully quick! It had to be so, indeed, for young dragon-flies and water-spiders and many other enemies were always waiting to swallow them if the chance came.

After a few days the wrigglers changed their shapes in the strangest ways. Funny round s.h.i.+elds grew over their heads, and two little tubes grew up from the top of each s.h.i.+eld. These tubes stood above the water when the babies were at the top, and now the tail curled round, and was not used for breathing any more, for the babies breathed through the two little tubes.

Under the s.h.i.+eld the babies were busily making their wings and growing into mother and father mosquitoes. But though they were so busy, they did not rest; they moved about almost as much as ever, but now their heads were so heavy that they tumbled and bobbed up and down instead of wriggling. So everybody in the pond called them tumblers.

Now came their last days in the pond. One by one they pushed themselves out of their old skins, and stood on top of them to dry their wings. Then they left their old home, flying off to the nearest bushes for their first rest, and from there seeking out their food.

"We want only juices," said the father mosquitoes; "juices of fruit or sweet green things."

But the mother mosquitoes said: "We want blood. Nothing but blood.

Where is it? Where is it?"

THE SCRAMBLER

He was a young blackberry plant; but he was so tiny that he could scarcely be seen. Indeed, there was such a crush of growing things round him that it was a wonder he was not choked. He had started life under a hedge where the tangled weeds grew so thickly that even air was scarce; it looked for a time as if the little Scrambler must die.

But his heart was bold; he did not give up. He pushed and pushed till he rose a little higher and could breathe a little more freely; then he grew a number of strong curved hooks on his arms.

"Kindly allow me to hold on to you," he said to the nearest weeds. He held on to them with his hooks and rose yet higher in the crowd.

"Take your hooks out. You are hurting us!" cried the weeds. They tried to grow above him and to crush him down, but he had the start now, and he made the most of it. Higher and higher he grew, holding on to the taller plants, and sending out new hooked branches on every side to help in his support. At last his head rose above all the surrounding plants. He could breathe freely in the sweet air. "Ah!

this is delightful!" he cried. He grew fast, spreading himself out widely on both sides.

Next he turned his attention to the hedge. "I must climb to the top,"

he said, "so as to escape its shadow and get all the suns.h.i.+ne there is." Hook by hook and branch by branch he climbed up the side of the hedge until he could look over the top.

"Why don't you grow thick stems of your own instead of hanging on to other people?" grumbled the hedge. But the Scrambler took no notice; he was busy making his flowers. "Now that I have been so successful, I must do my duty and bear seeds," he said to himself.

When the buds opened he was starred with pretty white blossoms tinged here and there with pink. He put plenty of honey in the honey-cups, so the insects came in crowds and carried his pollen from flower to flower. "That is well," he said. "Now my seeds will set."

Soon the petals fell and the seeds set. "I must make a sweet berry, so that the birds will carry my seeds away to grow," he said. So he set his seeds in berries that turned black and sweet and juicy. The birds came and picked them, and carried the seeds away to grow.

"I wonder you like to see your children going so far away from you,"

said the Hedge.

"It is the best thing for them," replied the Scrambler. "There is no room for them here. They would be choked if they fell beneath my branches."

There was indeed no room for them there. The Scrambler had not only covered the top of the hedge, but had grown over the other side too, down to the ground.

WOOLLYMOOLLY

Woollymoolly blamed the sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies; but I blame Woollymoolly for not doing as he was told. He never would do what he was told, and that caused all the trouble. When he was only a few weeks old he jumped down from the railway truck, away from his mother; and though she called him and called him and called him, he just ran and ran and ran till he was lost. Then a big kind lady found him and took him home and fed him; and he became a Pet Lamb.

At first she gave him milk, but as soon as he could eat gra.s.s he was tethered to a peg in the back garden and allowed to nibble for yards and yards and yards all round. That should have been enough, for there was plenty of gra.s.s; and if he tired of gra.s.s there was clover; and if he tired of clover there were soft sow-thistles and milky chickweed.

But after the first week he never was content with the back, for through a hole in the fence he could see in the front the sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies.

His peg was moved from day to day, to give him fresh choice of the gra.s.s and clover and soft sow-thistles and the milky chickweed, but he would not be content. He raced round and round and tugged at his rope, until one day the peg came out. Then with a rush he was on his way to the front garden, dragging rope and peg behind him. But his mistress heard the patter, patter, patter of his naughty little hoofs, and she ran fast and caught him, and hammered the peg in again. Then she told him plainly what to do. "Stay where you are tied," she said. "This is your garden, all amongst the gra.s.s and the clover and the soft sow-thistles and the milky chickweed. You must never, never go into the front to eat my sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies."

She was good to him. She brought him juicy turnips, and he grew big and fat and strong. One day she let him wander in the road, and at once he thought of the forbidden front. The little gate was shut and latched, but through the picket fence he could see the s.h.i.+ning of the flowers, the sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies. So he waited and he waited and he waited, till at last that careless, lazy, good-for-nothing butcher boy forgot to shut and latch the little gate. Then in crept Woollymoolly, and all the sunny day, while his mistress forgot him in her household work, he gobbled up the sweet-peas and the sunflowers and the gold and purple pansies.

At last his mistress thought of him, and went to bring him in. She searched up the road and down the road and back and forth across the road, and at last she found him gobbling in her garden. "Oh, you wicked, wicked lamb!" she cried. "You have eaten all my flowers. You have pulled and smashed and trampled all my pretty garden. You have greedily gobbled up my sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies."

The next day came the careless, lazy, good-for-nothing butcher boy again, but this time when he went he carried with him in his cart the lamb who would not do as he was told. "I have done with him!" his mistress cried.

What happened to him afterwards I will not say, though maybe you can guess. At any rate, he never disobeyed again, nor walked amongst the sweet-peas and the sunflowers and the gold and purple pansies.

THISTLE-MOTHER

Thistle-mother looked up and saw that the winter was over, for the sun was creeping higher and higher in the sky, and the birds were practising their spring songs. So, unfolding her arms, she spread them over the ground, and began to push herself up into the warm air.

Her home was on the roadside, where gra.s.ses and weeds grew so closely together that it was hard to find room. As she grew, they began to complain. "Don't push so," they cried. "And oh! how horribly p.r.i.c.kly you are! You are scratching us dreadfully."

"I am very sorry," she said, "but I really cannot help it. I seem to grow like this without knowing it."

"Well, you might at least go somewhere else to live, where you will not disturb so many people," they grumbled. But this was just what she could not do. She went on growing; as the others shrank back from her p.r.i.c.kly arms she could look over their heads.

One day she saw a cow eating the gra.s.ses near her. She shuddered as its long tongue twisted itself round their poor helpless stems, and forced them into its great mouth. When it pa.s.sed her by untouched she felt thankful that she had so many thorns on her arms. "At last I know why I grow like this," she thought. "The p.r.i.c.kles are very useful, after all."