Ant ventures

Anthony Ant’s glow of happiness cheered him for some time, and then he happened to think he had to go back across the brook again after his shoes. He had left his basket and dressing case on the other side too. If he had only known about the berry bush sooner, he would have brought everything over in the first place and saved himself a lot of work. Sitting and thinking about the matter would not do any good, so he took one more taste of a good berry and down he started.

He met many large black Ants going up and down the bush to the berries and back to their homes. But they gave him no more than a passing glance, as they were not out seeing the world, but carrying food to their homes. Those going home had bits of dried berries, sweet to the taste though not juicy, and every Ant attended to his work as hard as possible.

It was not an easy trip back to the brook even after the refreshing berry juice. The Ant had to wait some time after going back over the dead branch to the stone, and over the stone to another stone where the grass bridge was, before he could find anything floating near enough to jump upon for a ferryboat.

At last along came a thin piece of wood. He gave a jump and landed upon it all right, and was settling down to watch for a stone nearer shore, and a chance to get to it, when down on to the wood fluttered a leaf from a tree. On the leaf was a Caterpillar as fuzzy as he could be, but fussy.

“I don’t like Ants on my pleasure boat,” said he. “Get off!”

“O sir, but I can’t!” cried the Ant, much frightened. “I did not know this was your boat. I was just trying to cross the brook and jumped on to the first thing that came near enough to my stone where I was waiting. If I should get off now, I should be drowned!”

“You are a careless person,” said Mr. Caterpillar. “You should have looked first before jumping.”

“But nobody was on the boat then,” answered the Ant.

“It does not make any difference,” said the Caterpillar. “You might have known that I might board it at any time. However, you may stay until there is a chance for you to get off.”

“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the Ant. “I’ll be very quiet and not rock the boat a bit.”

The fussy old Caterpillar walked up and down his pleasure boat all the time. When he came to one end, he raised his head and, moving it back and forth, looked all about him. Then he turned around and crawled to the other end and did the same thing, He kept this up until all at once the boat bumped against the shore itself, for they had drifted in.

“Well,” said he, “here’s land at last. I may as well get off here as anywhere. You go first, and I’ll see how you manage.”

The Ant was glad to be upon land once more, and lost no time in jumping to the stone from the bobbing bit of wood the Caterpillar called a pleasure boat. The Caterpillar was so fussy that he would not hurry off, but stood talking about his work to be done. The pleasure boat was only a fancy of his, and was really not his, but he was on his way to put himself into the best place he could find for a long sleep till time to be a Butterfly. Traveling was not pleasure for him, but part of his life work. Whether he liked traveling or not, he had to tramp on and on and on, ever so far, before taking that long sleep of his which would be the last of him as a Caterpillar. When he woke from a beautiful, splendiferous dream that would last for a long time, he hoped to find himself a lovely Butterfly.

“I have traveled so long on my feet,” he told the Ant, “that I thought I’d make part of my journey a water trip. That is why I am on this pleasure boat.”

“What makes the boat yours?” asked Anthony Ant, for, now that he was safe on the shore, he was not afraid to ask the Caterpillar a question or two.

“Why,” replied the fussy Caterpillar, “it’s mine because I took it, of course!”

“Oh, but I took it first,” said the Ant. “I was already aboard when you dropped down on to the deck with your leaf from the tree. If just taking a boat makes it belong to you, it is more mine than yours, for I had already taken it, you know.”

“Never mind,” the fuzzy, fussy Caterpillar answered. “The boat is mine now, and I will not quarrel with you. It is wrong to quarrel, anyway, and it is very bad for any one to quarrel before going to sleep. It will spoil the best dream, and I do not intend to spoil the long, lovely one I am going to have. He who goes to bed quarreling and cross gets up ill-tempered and unhappy, and maybe it would spoil my chances of having beautiful colors as a Butterfly. I have chosen purple and gold, and I should like to have wings with fancy scallops on the edges too. So I shall not quarrel one word with you, for if I do I may wake up just a common old everyday sort of Moth, and that would be disgraceful. I should simply crawl away under a leaf and die of shame, I know. So, when I say the boat is mine, do not dispute me! If you do, you will be sorry, for when your long sleep comes your dream will be a bad one, and you will find when you wake up that you are not a beautiful Butterfly at all, but a horrid, plain, mean little Moth Fly, probably.”

“Oh,” said Anthony, “but you see, I am not going to be a Butterfly anyway. I don’t want to be a Butterfly!”

“What!” shouted the Caterpillar, so surprised that he nearly stood up on his tail. “Don’t want to be a Butterfly! I never heard of such a thing in my life! You must be a very bad young person, indeed! Why, sir, the thing is the worst I ever heard! Mercy, me! Not want to be a Butterfly! Oh, my, my!”

“Oh, but Ants do not turn into Butterflies!” explained Anthony, for, as young as he was, he knew that he never would be anything but an Ant if he lived ever so long.

“Don’t tell me that!” cried the fuzzy, fussy Caterpillar. “The thing is unbelievable! Besides, did I not meet you on your long travel? There, sir, that proves you are soon going to take your long sleep and wake up a Butterfly, unless you have spoiled your chances by telling such a wrong story as that! Perhaps you will say you have not been eating all you can hold, up to this time, on purpose to get ready for the long sleep when there will be no chance to eat.”

“No,” answered the Ant, “I have not been eating all I can hold at all, for my food has about given out, and I have been across the stream to refresh myself with the juice of the berries on a large bush. I could eat a lot more food if I could get it.”

“Oh, well,” said the Caterpillar, “that is because you are young, you see. I was hungry all the time till I grew to my full size. By the time you are as large as I am, you will have had all you want to eat. You see, you have made a mistake. Here you are taking the long journey before you have eaten the proper amount. My dear young sir, you have gotten the matter twisted. You are living your life the wrong side around. You are beginning with the traveling, when you should have begun with the eating and kept at it till you had grown as large as you could. It is a lucky thing you happened to find yourself on my pleasure boat, for if you had not met me you would just go on doing everything the wrong way around. Oh, my, my! You might even have tried to begin being a Butterfly without first falling asleep. Only fancy! Now go right away this minute till you find a tender young bush, and don’t you stop eating that bush till you are my size. Then do your traveling, and you will be ready for the long dream time, and wake up a beautiful Butterfly almost as handsome as I shall be. Run along, now!”

“But aren’t you going to land here, too? You said so,” said the Ant, “and you told me to land first so you could see how I did it. Even if I cannot do as you advise me, because no Ant ever turned into a Butterfly, yet I shall be glad to help you get off to this stone if you want me to hang on to the boat to steady it.”

“Certainly not!” declared the fussy, fuzzy Caterpillar. “I have decided to travel a little farther. I shall not land here at all. I am afraid I should quarrel with you after all if I did. Push me off! I cannot have my chances of becoming a beautiful purple and gold Butterfly, with fancy scallops on the edges of my wings, spoiled by landing. Push me off!”

The Ant pushed as well as he could, but it was really the fuzzy, fussy Caterpillar putting his whole weight on the other side of the boat that started it down the stream again. The last that Anthony Ant saw of him he was walking up and down the deck as fussily as ever as the current swept him out of sight around a large stone.