Ant ventures

Oh, my, my, my! If ever Anthony Ant thought the cure had worked, it was the very next morning! The rain was pouring more like a Niagara Falls than a plain, hard shower, and he just had to grab his things and run into a horrid, dark, toadstooly-smelling log where anything might live, and anything might happen to him, too. There was not another place to go unless he ran into an Angleworm’s hole, and he had had all he wanted to do with Angleworms for one while. The rain swished and swooshed and bliffed and bluffed so against things and on them that it was not safe to stay under a leaf, nor under most stones however far the hollows went under them. He would have been drowned.

Away back in the middle of the great, horrible log there was not so much as a drop of rain. At any rate, the log did not leak, even if it was as dark as the darkest cellar and might have things in it. He was lucky not to have gotten his new hat soaked, and he had all his things with him, though there was not much in his lunch basket.

He found that all sorts of creatures were gathered in the center of the great log. There were Crickets, and Thousand-legged Worms, and Daddy Long-legs; and little Bugs, and medium-sized Bugs, and big Bugs; and a Toad, and a Lizard, and a green Snake, and a draggled Moth, and a Walking-Stick Insect, and a Snail in a shell, and a Snapping Beetle, and a Berry Bug, and a Katydid; and a funny thing that might have been a Katydidn’t; and an unpleasant, wiggly thing part Bug and part Worm; and a Locust, and a Slug; and goodness knows what else besides. For there were all sorts of things he could not see that wiggled, and twisted, and shoved, and poked, and pushed, and slithered, and slid, and joggled, and the dark made it impossible to see.

Although the place might be full of ladies, Anthony Ant found the safest way to keep his hat at all was to leave it on his head. So he did, for no one was thinking much of manners, he knew. The only thing any one could think about was getting away from the rain. Why, there were creatures in there that almost always ate each other when out in the open. But here they were glad enough not to think of such a thing, but just to be content with keeping from being killed by the rain.

That was indeed the moment when Anthony Ant would have given everything he had if he could have been safe and sound in Ant-Hill Manor. An awful lump, Size Sixty-seven, got into his throat, and was almost unswallowable! The noise of the rain thumped upon the log until it seemed as though it would pound it all to smithereens or splintereens. And the roar of the wind and the rain together sounded through the log until you couldn’t think, blink, or wink. There were twenty-seven other noises besides, which the Ant thought he never had heard before.

All at once, whatever light had managed to creep faintly in at one end of the log was blocked out, making that end as black as the blackest night.

“Snoof, snoof, snoof!” said something as big as the log nearly.

The whole company made a dash for the other end of the log, and the rain and wind drove them back, so there they were. If they got out, they would be thumped to pieces by the rain in about half a second. If they stayed in, the awful Snoofer, whatever he was, might trample them to nothing at all. What to do, they didn’t know!

The Snoofer really was a Woodchuck, perfectly friendly, though too big for any of them to get too near in a crowded place where there was no room for him and them to pass each other.

“Hello, folks!” said he. “Don’t move. Plenty of room. You’re all welcome to Hollow-Log Inn. It’s not fit weather for any of you to get out into, so you stay in. This is an inn, and you’re in, so there you are for a joke worth having. Make yourselves at home.”

Well, at least they were not so frightened after that, though they jolly well knew they would have to look out if he turned around much or came their way.

“Seems good to get in,” said he. “I like my other underground house better than this, but I was caught when I was making a run for it from a long hunt in the woods, and I happened to think Hollow-Log Inn had a better roof than Burrow Hall. Why, I’ll wager Burrow Hall is full of water. If the rain hasn’t run down through all the entrances, it must have soaked through the ground above the halls by this time and flooded them badly. I hope all of you are all right and none the worse for the big drops, nor for the poundings and bruisings you may have had from it before you came inside.”

Mr. Woodchuck spoke such kind words, which they managed to hear in spite of the thumping of the rain and the roar of the wind, and in spite of all the twenty-seven noises besides, that they knew some one ought to thank him politely.

But, mercy! Who could thank him in all that noise, when their voices were so little and his voice so big? They were sure they could not make him hear, so they bowed politely and smiled. As he could see well in the dark, he knew what they meant, and said he would do all the talking, and they need not try to answer till the storm was over.

They all bowed again.

“Before I do much talking,” said he, “I’ve got to have a snooze. I’ve been on the go all day, and a little snooze will fix me right up. Maybe the rain and wind will quiet down a little so we can hear ourselves think better by that time.”

Well, sir, the Woodchuck curled himself into a fat ball of wet fur that smelled—well, just like wet fur—and to sleep he went, and not a bit more for the wind, and the rain, and the noise they made, cared he! And he even snored, and that made the twenty-eighth noise to be heard in and out and around about Hollow-Log Inn!