LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS
It’s a wonder, it’s a wonder
That they live to tell the tale.
—_Anon._
Mrs. Potato Bug did not return. A sister bug rose to speak when the
meeting opened after dinner. There had been a sad tragedy in the potato
field, she told them, and even at that very minute the farmer and the
farmer’s men, armed with barrels of “pizens,” were waging a warfare in
which millions of potato bugs were going down to their death. “Alas! my
friends,” she finished with a sigh that seemed to come from the very
tips of her six feet, “no words can paint the dreadful scene. She who
was here but a short while ago, so chipper and so gay, even she was
giving her last gasp as I fled from the field of carnage.”
The story moved the audience deeply, and all agreed that something
should be done to suppress the farmers. It was even suggested to appoint
a committee to consider ways and means, but at this point a very young
potato bug asked the question:
“If there were no farmers, who would plant potatoes for us?”
“No one,” answered Mrs. Sawyer, who was there just as self-important as
ever. “Then maybe there would be no potato bugs, and I for one wouldn’t
be sorry.”
“Indeed,” said the potato bug who had told the tale of battle, “I’d have
you know we are Colorado beetles, if you please, and our family has a
world-wide fame. We are true Americans, too, and not emigrants from
Europe, like many other insects, and that reminds me: The other day when
I was having a nice chew on some very juicy potato leaves, I heard
somebody say to somebody else: ‘Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the
West.’ He said a lot more, but I heard that plainly, and I wondered if
he meant our family, and didn’t know our name, because, you know, we
came out of the West.”
“I am sure he didn’t mean you,” said Ruth, who was in her old place
right in the middle of the meeting. “That line is from a lovely piece of
poetry about——”
“No one asked your opinion,” answered the potato bug angrily. “It is bad
enough to have outsiders force themselves in, without being obliged to
hear their silly remarks.”
Ruth’s face grew red, and she was about to reply, when Mrs. Sawyer
whispered in her ear.
“Don’t mind her, she is only a potato bug.”
It was well that Mrs. Potato Bug did not hear this. “Before 1859,” she
was saying, “our home was in the shade of the Rocky Mountains. There we
fed on sandspur, a plant belonging to the potato family, and the East
knew us not. It was only after the white settlers came West and planted
potatoes that we found out how much nicer a potato leaf is than a
sandspur leaf, so of course we ate potato leaves. We came East,
travelling from patch to patch, and by 1874 we had conquered the country
to the Atlantic Ocean. That shows what a smart family we must be, and I
will tell you how we do. We lay our eggs on the potato leaves, and our
children find their dinner all ready, and, as they hatch with splendid
appetites, they get right to work. Those that hatch in the Fall sleep
all Winter in the ground and come out as beetles in the Spring, just in
time to lay more eggs. So we keep things going, especially the
potatoes.” And Mrs. Potato Bug retired with the air of one quite proud
of herself.
Her place was taken by a little ladybug, looking quite pretty in her
reddish-brown dress, daintily spotted with black.
“I have several cousins,” she said, “of different colours, but all
spotted and all friends to farmers and fruit growers, for we eat the
aphides and scale bugs which do so much harm to plants. We are called
bugs, but of course we are beetles. I could tell you a story——”
“Never mind the story,” said a great brown blundering fellow, much to
Ruth’s regret, for she wanted to hear the story.
“Excuse my awkwardness,” said the newcomer. “It bothers me to fly by
day. I like to go around the evening lamps. I can buzz loud enough for a
fellow three inches long, though I am really not one. I am called a June
bug, and I’m really a May beetle. What do you think of that? I have been
told that the farmers do not like us, nor our children either. They are
such nice, fat, white grubs too. They do love to suck the roots of
plants though, and, as we grown fellows are just as fond of the leaves,
between us we make the poor old plants pretty sick.”
“I wish something had made you sick before you came here to disturb
quiet folks with your buzzing,” said a large blue beetle, dropping some
oil from her joints in her excitement.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she added when Ruth spoke to her about it. “It
only proves that I have a right to be called an oil beetle. In these
days it is so important to know who is who.”
Ruth was watching the oozing oil curiously.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” was the answer. “It is perfectly natural. I can’t move about
fast, I am too fat, and I haven’t any wings to speak of. So when
anything disturbs me I can only play ’possum and drop oil. I wasn’t
always like this, though,” she went on, with a heavy sigh. “Would you
believe it? I was born under a stone in a field of buttercups. I was
tiny, but my body had thirteen joints and three pairs of as active
little legs as you ever saw. Each had a claw on it too. What do you
think of that? I used my legs right away to climb a nearby flower stalk.
Something inside of me seemed to tell me just what to do, and when a bee
came flying by, though she looked like a giant, I wasn’t a bit afraid,
but I popped on her back, and clutched so tight with my six little
claw-like legs she couldn’t have gotten me off if she had tried. But
maybe she didn’t know I was there. Anyway, I had some lovely free rides,
for she flew from flower to flower, and then she went home.”
“Oh,” interrupted Ruth, “did you go right into the hive?”
“Yes, but I didn’t notice much about it at first. I felt very tired, and
I can only remember dropping from her back and going to sleep. When I
awoke a funny thing had happened.”
“What?” asked Ruth, full of curiosity.
“My legs were gone, and only a half dozen short feelers were left me
instead. But I didn’t mind. I was in one of the tiny rooms of the hive,
and there was a nice fat bee baby for me to eat. I didn’t lose any time
either; I was hungry. Besides the baby there were bee bread and honey.
Who could ask for more? Indeed, I ate so much I went to sleep again,
and, would you believe me? in that sleep I lost even my short feelers,
and, worst of all, my mouth.”
“Gracious!” said Ruth.
“I suppose after that I slept again, for what’s the use of staying awake
if you can’t eat? But that nap finished me. I waked up looking as I do
now. It was a sad change. Maybe that is why I feel so blue and am called
the indigo beetle.”
“I don’t see why you changed so many times,” said Ruth.
“Neither do I. No other insect does, but I suppose it has to be. I shall
soon lay my eggs, and that no doubt will be the end of me. We seem to
begin and end with eggs.”
She sighed heavily, and went on: “I have a cousin who is used to make
blisters on people. Think of it! She is called Spanish fly, and she is
no more a fly than you are.”
“Does she bite them to make the blister?” asked Ruth.
“Dear me, no! The poor thing is dried and made into powder and then
spread with ointment on a cloth. That makes the blister. I suppose it
takes ever so many of my poor cousins for just one blister. I tell you,
life is sad.”
“Do stop that sort of thing, I can’t stand it!” said a plain, slender
little beetle, with no pretensions to beauty of any sort. “I came here
as a special favour, and then I am forced to hear such talk as that. I
am never at my best in the day, and you should know it. Some of you
complain of being called bug, and others object to the name fly. Now I
am as much a beetle as any of you, and I’ve been called both bug and
fly.”
“A lightning bug?” cried Ruth.
“Yes, and also firefly, and if it was dark I’d prove it. Of course my
light can’t be seen in the day, and generally I’m not to be seen either,
for we fireflies hide away on the leaves of plants until it begins to
grow dark. Then we come out, and have gay times flying over the meadows.
Some of our family who live in warm climates are so large and bright
they are used to read by. Not only that, ladies wear them as they would
jewels, and in Japan——”
But the firefly could say no more, for just at this moment some
whirligig beetles came flying in and every one turned to look at them.
“I should like to know what those fellows are doing here,” said a
bumble-bee beetle, making such a loud humming that Mrs. Sawyer declared
she thought a real bumble bee was in their midst. “People who live in
the water shouldn’t belong to our family, anyhow. I can’t imagine any
one liking the water.”
“That’s because you are not a water beetle,” answered one of the
whirligigs.
“Why, the water is the most sociable place in the world. Something
lively happening all the time. Constant changes too. Those who are with
us one moment are gone the next, but that is life on land as well as in
the water for us insects. Dinner is always our first thought. Of course
we water fellows are fitted for our life. We are put together more
tightly than you land beetles, and we are boat-shaped besides. We use
our hind legs for paddles, and we have wings with which we can leave the
water if we wish. We whirligigs are sociable fellows, always a lot of us
together, and such fun as we have dancing and whirling about in the
water! We don’t often dive unless something is after us.”
“You must have very good times,” said Ruth, watching the shiny, bluish
black little beetles with eager attention. Then she asked quite
suddenly:
“Have you four eyes?”
“No, my dear,” answered the first speaker, “we have only two. They look
like four, because they are divided into upper and lower halves. So you
see we can look up and down at the same time, and, I tell you, insects
need to step lively to keep out of our way. Good times? I should say we
did have good times. Now to the surface to snatch bubbles of air with
the tiny hairs on the tip of our tails, and then down again for a race
or a game of tag with our friends. No, not all the water beetles are as
frisky as we are. Some are—now what _is_ that?”
The whirligig might well ask the question, for a sound like a tiny
popgun had broken in upon his remarks, and the whole audience, including
Ruth of course, was looking at a greenish blue beetle who had just come
in, leaving a fine trail of smoke behind him. It was he who had made the
queer noise, and he seemed quite disturbed by the sensation he was
creating.
“Do excuse me,” he begged. “I really forgot I was among friends.”
“I should think so,” answered the elater, looking at him sternly. “A
beetle who carries a gun should be careful about using it.”
“Well, I try to be careful, but accidents will happen.”
“Yes, you might really call it a gun,” he said, in answer to Ruth’s
question, “and I have been named the Bombardier beetle because I carry
it. When men try to catch me, I shoot it off, though I suppose it really
doesn’t hurt them, but it quite blinds my insect enemies until I can get
away, anyhow. Oh, no, I do not use balls or shot. It is a fluid, in a
sac at the end of my body, and when I spurt it out it turns to gas, and
looks like smoke.”
“Well, we have had talk enough for to-day,” interrupted the elater, and
the Bombardier beetle said no more.
“Talk?” repeated Mrs. Sawyer, “I should say so. Very tiresome talk too.
Now I’m going out to lay some eggs. I know a lovely tree.”
“That’s all she thinks about,” said the elater. “I’m sure we have had a
very interesting meeting, and I made the main issue very plain.”
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