Ant ventures

Poor, tired Anthony Ant did not get so far away from Molesworth Hall that night as he thought he would before stopping to sleep, and when he finally did stop he had a most terrible night.

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: