His skin (the bug’s, I mean), was actually cracking right down the back,
just as though the air and sunshine had dried it too much.
Poor fellow, he seemed in great trouble about it. Then, to make matters
worse, a part of his coat broke off at the top and slipped down over his
eyes, so that he could not see. After a moment, however, it dropped
further, quite under the place where his chin would have been, had he
had a chin.
“Oh! he is getting a new face. A prettier one, too, I am glad to say.”
It seemed as if John was always first to notice things, for it was just
as he said; as the old face slipped away a new one came in its place.
I guess that by this time that old bug was as much astonished as we
were. He was wriggling about in a very strange fashion, and at last
quite wriggled himself out of his old shell. Then we saw two pairs of
wings, which must have been folded away in little cases by his side,
begin to open like fans. Next, he stretched his legs, and it was easy to
see that they were longer and more beautiful than those he had had
before.
Then, before we could admire his slender, graceful body, or fully
realize the wonderful change that had occurred in him, he darted away
before our astonished eyes, not a black bug, but a beautiful Dragon-fly.
“Hurrah!” we both shouted. The next second we were rushing at top speed
to tell Auntie all about it; just as though she had not known all along
what was going to happen.
She listened and then told us what we did not know.
How months before the mother Dragon-fly had dropped her tiny eggs in the
water, where they hatched out the black bugs, which were so unlike their
mother that she did not know them for her children, and had no word to
say to them during the long hours she spent in skimming over the water
where they lived.
These bugs were content at first to live in the mud. But soon came the
longing for sun and air. And then followed the wonderful transformation
from an ugly black bug to the beautiful dragon-fly.
If you will go beside some pond in the spring or early summer, and find
among the water grasses such a bug as I have described, and will then
watch long enough you will see just what John and I saw. Afterwards I am
sure you will agree with us that it is very wonderful indeed.
Louise Jamison.