Ant ventures

Thoughtfully Anthony Ant crawled down the cat-tail and went on toward the brook.

“Since I cannot reach the brook tonight, I may as well go carefully, camp out in some pleasant spot for the night, and rest my feet so that I shall be able to stand the way of the rough spots around the brook more easily tomorrow,” he said to himself.

Nothing exciting happened until he came to such a spot. It was a soggy, spongy, mossy spot in the field where the grass was not too tall, and where the ground was a bit more moist and sweet fern made the air like perfume.

Here Anthony Ant pulled off his shoes and stockings and hung up his hat where he could keep an eye on it. He never had forgotten the Field Mouse Ant Venture. Then he sat down on a comfortable-looking flat weed that was almost like a cushion. How cosy this seat was! It seemed to fit him exactly. As he bore his whole weight upon it the weed cushion began to fit more and more cosily about him, he thought.

The Ant was drowsy. He thought he would take a small nap of not more than seven or eight winks before he ate his supper. He started to get up just to turn himself over a little more to the side, when, lo and behold, sir, he found it easier to think about getting up than to get up! He was held down rather too firmly by tiny red hairs that were folding all about him from the weed cushion. That did not suit him, you’d better believe, so he roused himself in a hurry and began to pull himself away. He found that he was getting covered with something sticky that helped keep him back in the clutches of the thing he had sat down upon.

At last, by twisting and turning and kicking and pulling, he freed himself and looked back to see the queer sort of plant that had tried to catch him. There he saw a tiny Fly already dead from having been folded in by those fine red hairs of another of the cushion leaves of this strange plant.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” chuckled a good-natured voice above him. “What do you think of sundew now?”

Anthony Ant looked up, and there sat the Dragon Fly peering down at him through great far-seeing, horn-rimmed glasses he wore on his air trips.

“I was sailing by and thought I’d see if by any chance you had come as far as this on your homeward way,” said he, and lighted upon a sweet fern leaf near Anthony.

“Bring your things over here,” he continued. “Better sleep in the sweet fern bed tonight. It’s perfectly safe. I’ll help you brush up a bit first.”

Anthony Ant needed brushing. While the Dragon Fly helped him scrape off the sticky stuff and wash and comb himself, with the things Anthony had in the dressing case, the good-natured Dragon Fly told the Ant all about sundew and how it ate up little insects it held with the sticky stuff and the hairs that curled over things that lighted upon its leaves.

The Ant invited the Dragon Fly to stay to supper with him, for there was plenty for both in the lunch basket, and enough for Anthony’s breakfast besides. The Dragon Fly was tickled to pieces over the Clover Lodge honey. He never had tasted it before.

After supper what do you think they did? Why, they just sat and talked about this thing, that thing, and the other thing, until it was later than Dragon Flies and Ants stayed up usually. The Dragon Fly told Anthony Ant all the best of the marsh stories he could think of that ended pleasantly. Anyway, so far as the Dragon Fly knew, he could not tell a story that ended unpleasantly. Such stories he never remembered, as they never cheered any one up and they left bad tastes in the mouth, he said. But he did tell the Ant about Will-o’-the-wisps; and about the pale blue, wild iris that blossoms in the spring; and about Red-winged Blackbirds that bring new stories from the South every year; and about a Marsh Hen; and about the little Wild Duck that knew something worth while; and about Frogs and what they meant by the different noises they called across the marsh on lonely nights; and about the murmuring of the waters around the rushes; and about the songs in poems the rushes whispered; and about the Wind that carried the poems to places where there were no poems. Anthony Ant thought it all a beautiful dream.

Then the Dragon Fly said “Good night” and “Good luck” once more and sailed off to bed in the marsh, and Anthony Ant tucked himself up in the sweet fern. First, however, for fear there might be something he had not yet seen that might hurt him, he put his pass out in plain sight. He even took care to guard against any jumpy Spider that might be around there by calling out in his loudest voice, three times, like this: “Yellowbird! Yellowbird! Yellowbird!”