After two glorious days of exploring--"exploricating," the guides called
it--the children went to bed early, expecting to make an early start to
hunt partridge. They were so tired from their good times that for two or
three hours they slept like tops.
But in front of the cabin Ben Gile and Mrs. Reece and the other guides
were looking at the night sky anxiously. The lightning flashed more and
more vividly, black clouds were coming nearer and nearer. What was a
distant rumble soon became a near-by, long undertow of ominous sound.
Nearer and nearer it came, until every flash was followed by a sound
like ripping.
Mrs. Reece was very uneasy, for she did not like to have the children in
the tents alone. But soon Betty and Hope came scampering through the
dark to the cabin. They were surprised to see the older people up.
Before long the boys also came to the cabin rubbing their eyes, yawning,
and pretending not to care whether there was to be a cyclone or a
cloud-burst.
For a while all sat waiting for the storm to break. When it did break,
what torrents of rain and wind descended! How the trees groaned and
cracked! How the rain roared upon the shingled roof, and how the wind
howled through the mountain valley!
"Well," said Ben Gile, "let's have a fire in the fireplace, then we can
have a crackle of our own." He had noticed how nervous Mrs. Reece grew,
and that the little girls were watching her. He could not help thinking
that it was foolish, even wicked, to waste strength in fear of something
which no one of them could stop. "Build a fire, boys." And build a fire
they did--a royal good blaze. "Now throw on some of those pine-cones you
children gathered." There was a flare in the cabin almost as bright as
the incessant flare of the lightning outside. "I'll tell you what we'll
do," he continued, "we will have a midnight spread. We will have some of
Tom's famous flapjacks. Mrs. Reece, don't you want to make molasses
candy, and then the children can pull it."
The storm was forgotten by the children as, with many squeals of glee,
they rushed into this midnight frolic.
"And now, Ben," said Tom, the guide, "I've just found something; I have
it in my hand. I propose, Ben, while the rest of us work, that you make
one of your stories out of it, and tell us all about it."
Tom opened his hand, and the children crowded around to see. There was a
shout of laughter.
"Why, that's only a dead June-bug!"
"Who wants to know about a June-bug?" exclaimed Jimmie, much to the
discomfiture of the guide, who knew a great deal about moose and deer
and bears and beavers, even if he didn't know much about a June-bug. The
guides had profound respect for the schoolmaster, Ben Gile, who was
really too wise and kind to laugh at another's ignorance. But this is
another story, and Jimmie learned better in the years to come.
"You're right, Tom," said Ben, "to want to know. Sometimes it's about
these commonest things folks know the least. When I was a boy it was
always so with me. There are several facts about a June-bug that are
interesting. First, it is not a bug at all; and, second, it comes in
May and not in June. It is really a May-beetle, and a great, clumsy,
buzzing, blundering fellow it is, as careless about its appearance as it
is about the way it enters a room. You know the old adage, 'Haste makes
waste'? Perhaps it's the haste that makes the June-bug's untidiness.
Beetles have hard wing covers--see these little shell-like casings?--to
cover the more delicate wings underneath. The June-bug has wing covers,
too, but it never keeps its best wings tucked in. They are always
hanging out in a crumpled way. These bugs eat the leaves of the trees,
and their children, little, fat, white grubs with horny heads, nibble,
as they crawl around under the surface of the earth, the tender roots of
the grass and the strawberry plants."
"Why, Ben, you've told me more already," said Tom, "than any dullard
like me could ever learn from a book. To think it's a beetle! But I
might have known from looking at it. Are all the beetles harmful?"
"Most of them are pests, and do a good deal of damage. Its cousin,
rose-beetle, is pretty, her body covered with soft, yellow hairs, and
she has rose-colored legs. But handsome is as handsome does, and
rose-beetle causes more damage than her clumsy cousin, for Rose feeds
on rose-bushes as well as on fruit trees. Indeed, almost everything that
comes to her mill is grist. She's as bad--and worse--than the
elm-beetle."
By this time the cooking molasses smelled so good, the cabin fire roared
so pleasantly, and the smell of the flapjacks Adam was frying was so
appetizing, that the children had quite forgotten the storm outside, and
were having one of the jolliest frolics of their lives--one they never
forgot.
"Tell us something more, sir," urged Jack, "about the beetles."
"There is one comical fellow who makes me think of Peter. In the books
it is called a click-beetle, but it is also called a skip-jack because
of the somersaults it can turn. On the under side of its thorax is a
spine resting on the edge of a hole. This funny beetle, by pushing the
spine down over the hole and then letting it go, throws itself up in the
air with a sharp click."
"Oh, I know them," called Hope, "for I have seen them doing it, but I
never knew how they did it!"
"And now," said Master All-Wise, very soberly, "after I tell you that
the children of the click-beetle are called wire-worms, and that they
eat and kill the roots of plants, I want to tell you about a beetle no
one of you has ever seen--a most extraordinary beetle."
[Illustration:
_A._ Lady-beetle.
_B._ Burying-beetle.
_C._ Oil-beetle.]
All were attention at once.
"Many years ago there lived away out in California a little, round,
brownish, striped beetle, which crawled about and ate heartily of a
plant called the sand-bur. One day one of the family happened to wander
up to a nice, juicy potato plant. After eating its fill it probably
looked up some of its brothers and sisters, and told them about these
good plants growing in the fields. With one accord they left the
sand-burs and began to eat the potato plant. Farther and farther they
wandered, until thousands of them reached the eastern part of our
country, eating the potato plants wherever they found them on the way.
Now, these beetles are to be seen everywhere in our country, spoiling
crop after crop."
By this time Jack's eager face was smiling, and he was looking
questioningly at Ben Gile.
"What kind of a beetle do you suppose it was?" asked the old man.