We were going to visit Aunt Bessie, and John and I like few things
better than that. To begin with, she lives in the country, and there is
always so much to do in the way of fun that the days never seem half
long enough.
Then, besides, Aunt Bessie knows everything, and can tell such famous
stories. So when she asked us one morning to go to the pond with her and
see something interesting, you may be sure we were not slow in following
her.
The rushes grew thickly along the sides, but the water was clear, and we
could plainly see the black bugs she pointed out to us crawling, slowly
and clumsily, over the muddy bottom.
“Those things!” said John, not a little disgusted. “I don’t think they
are much. Are they tadpoles?”
“Tadpoles!” I echoed. “Why, whoever saw tadpoles with six legs and no
tail?”
“The absence of a tail is very convincing,” laughed Aunt Bessie. “They
are certainly not tadpoles. Now watch them closely, please, and tell me
all about them.”
“They are abominably ugly. That is one thing,” broke in John. “They look
black, and have six legs. But how funny their skin is. More like a
crust, or lots of crusts laid one on the other. They are about the
stupidest things I ever saw. They seem to do nothing but crawl over that
mud and—Hello! they aren’t so stupid, after all. Did you see that fellow
snatch a poor fly and gobble him up quicker than you could say Jack
Robinson? And there’s another taken a mosquito just as quick. I’ll take
back what I said about the slow business. But really, Auntie, do you
think them very interesting?”
“I’ll ask you that question when you have learned something more about
them,” was her answer. “Tell me now what you think of that Dragon-fly
darting over the water?”
“Oh, he is a beauty,” we answered in a breath. “But please let us hear
something about those things down there.”
“Not to-day, boys. I wish you to see something for yourselves first.
Watch here for a few days and your patience will be rewarded, I promise
you. Then I will have a story to tell you.”
I knew that Auntie never spoke without reason, so John and I kept a
close watch on those bugs. For two days nothing happened. The old things
just crawled over the mud or ate flies and mosquitoes, as usual.
But the third day one big fellow decided to try something new. It was
nothing less than to creep up the stem of one of the rushes. I suppose
it was hard work, for he took a long time to get to the surface of the
water. Here he stopped a while and then seemed to make up his mind to go
further. Soon he was quite out of the water and could breathe all the
air and sunshine he wished. I believe he did not like it very well. He
seemed so restless and uneasy. I was expecting to see him go back, when
I heard John cry out:
“Look! oh, do look!”