In the corner of the barnyard was a pile of manure which was to be put
upon the garden and plowed in. This would make the ground better for
all the good things growing in it, but now it was waiting behind the
high board fence, and many happy insects lived in it. There were big
Bugs and little Bugs, fat Bugs and slim Bugs, young Bugs and old Bugs,
good Bugs and--well, one does not like to say that there were bad
Bugs, but there were certainly some not so good as others.
Among all these, however, there were none who worked harder or thought
more of each other than the Tumble-bugs. One couple, especially, were
thrifty and devoted. They had been married in June, when each was
just one day old. June weddings were the fashion among their people.
Mr. Tumble-bug believed in early marriages. “I have known
Tumble-bugs,” he said, “who did not marry until they were two days
old, but I think that a great mistake. Each becomes so used to having
his own way that it is very hard for husband and wife to agree on
anything. Now Mrs. Tumble-bug and I always think alike.” Then he
smiled at Mrs. Tumble-bug and Mrs. Tumble-bug smiled at him. They were
nearly always together and busy. Perhaps it was because they worked
together every day that they cared so much for each other. You know
that makes a great difference, and if one had worked all the time
while the other was playing, they would soon have come to care for
other things and people.
One hot summer morning, Mrs. Tumble-bug said to her husband, who was
just finishing his breakfast, “I have found the loveliest place you
ever saw for burying an egg-ball. Do hurry up! I can hardly wait to
begin work.”
Mr. Tumble-bug gulped down his last mouthful and answered, “I’m ready
now.”
“Follow me then,” she cried, and led the way over all sorts of little
things which littered up the ground of the barnyard. No Horse was
there just then, and she felt safe. Mr. Tumble-bug followed close
behind her, and a very neat-looking couple they made. Both were
flat-backed and all of shining black. “We do not dress so showily as
some Bugs,” they were in the habit of saying, “but black always looks
well.” And that was true. Although they spent most of their days
working in the earth, they were ever clean and shining, with smiling,
shovel-shaped faces.
“There!” said Mrs. Tumble-bug, as she stopped for breath and pointed
with her right fore-leg to the ground just ahead of her. “Did you ever
see a finer place?” She could point in this way, you know, without
falling over, because she had five other legs on which to stand. There
are some very pleasant things about having six legs, and the only
tumbling she and her husband did was part of their work.
“Excellent!” exclaimed Mr. Tumble-bug. “And the ground is so soft that
it will not tire you very much to dig in it.” He did not have to think
whether it would tire him, because he never helped in that part of the
work. His wife always liked to do that alone.
Then both Tumble-bugs scurried back to the manure heap. “I cannot see
why some of our neighbors are so foolish,” said she. “There is a
Beetle now, laying her eggs right in this pile. She will leave them
there, too, and as likely as not some hungry fellow will come along
before the sun goes down and eat every one of them. She might much
better take a little trouble, put her egg in a mass of food, and roll
it away to a safe place for burial. When my children hatch out into
soft little Grubs, I intend they shall have a chance to grow up safely
and comfortably. Such Beetles do not deserve to have children.”
“Well, they won’t have many,” said her husband. “Perhaps only a
pitiful little family of twenty or thirty.”
“Now,” exclaimed Mrs. Tumble-bug, “We must get to work. Help me roll
this ball of manure. I have laid an egg in it while we were talking,
so that time was not wasted.”
Together they rolled a ball which was bigger than both of them when it
started, and grew larger and larger as they got it away from the heap
and the dust of the ground stuck to it and crusted it over.
Mrs. Tumble-bug stood on top of the ball, and, creeping far out on it,
pulled it forward with her hind feet, while he stood on his head
behind it and pushed with his hind legs. Of course if Mrs. Tumble-bug
had not been climbing backward all the time, the ball would have
rolled right over her. To pull forward with part of your legs and
climb backward with all of them at the same time, and that when your
head is a good deal lower than your heels, is pretty hard work and
takes much planning. Mrs. Tumble-bug had very little breath for
talking, but she did not lose her temper. And that shows what an
excellent Bug she was. “Harder!” she would call out to Mr. Tumble-bug.
“We are coming to a little hill.”
Then Mr. Tumble-bug, who, you will remember, had to stand on his head
all the time, and really did the hardest part of the work, would
brace himself more firmly and push until it seemed as though his legs
would break. He could never see just where they were going unless he
let go of the ball, and Mrs. Tumble-bug did not believe in turning out
for anything.
“What if there is a hill?” she often said. “Can’t we go over it?” And
over it they always went, although they might much more easily have
gone around it. Mrs. Tumble-bug did not want anybody to think her
afraid of work, and she knew her husband would have a chance to rest
while she was burying the ball. Once in a while, when the ball came
down suddenly on the farther side of a twig or chip, it rolled quite
on top of her, and Mr. Tumble-bug would be greatly alarmed. Some
people thought this served her quite right for insisting that they
should go over things instead of around them. Still, one hardly likes
to say a thing like that.
If it were much of a hill, she would climb down from the ball and talk
with him. Then they would put their shovel-shaped heads together under
the back side of the ball, and, pushing at the same time, send it
over. “Two heads are better than one,” they would say, “and this needs
a great deal of head-work.”
At last the ball had reached the spot where they intended to have it
buried. Both were hot and tired. “Many legs make light work,” said
Mrs. Tumble-bug, as she carefully cleaned hers before eating dinner,
“and if there is anything I enjoy, it is finishing a good job like
this!”
Mr. Tumble-bug sighed heavily and said he thought he would go for a
walk with some of his friends that afternoon. “All work and no play
would make me a dull Bug,” said he. Then he called out “Good-by” to
his wife, and told her not to work too hard.
Mrs. Tumble-bug looked after him lovingly. “Now, isn’t he good?” she
said to herself. “There are not many Bugs who will help their wives at
all, and most of them never look at an egg, much less see to getting
it well placed.” And that is true, for the Tumble-bugs are the model
Bug fathers.
Now, indeed, Mrs. Tumble-bug was at her best. She hurried down her
dinner, taking mouthfuls which were much too large for good manners,
and began plowing the earth around the ball as it lay there. She
plowed so deep that sometimes she was almost buried in the loose
earth. At last she came up, took a good look around, knocked some
grains of dust off her shining back, then dived in again upside down,
and pulled the ball in after her by holding it tightly with her middle
legs. All the time she was kicking the earth away with her two hind
legs and her two front ones, which were stout diggers, so that little
by little she sank deeper into the ground.
She made a much larger hole for the ball than it really needed. “I
might just as well, while I am about it,” she said. “And I should so
dislike to have any one think me afraid of work.”
At last she finished and crawled away, covering the place neatly over,
so that nobody could see where she went in or out. “There!” she said.
“Now I am ready to play.”
A stray Chicken came along and she hurried under a chip to be safe.
The Chicken was lost and calling to his mother. “Mother!” he cried.
“Mother Hen, I want to get home and go to sleep under your wings.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Tumble-bug. “Is it time for Chickens to go
to sleep?” She looked through a crack in the fence and across the lawn
to the big house. The shadows lay long upon the short grass. “It
certainly is,” she said. “And here I have spent all day burying that
egg properly. I think it very strange that I cannot get more time for
rest and play.” So she had to eat her supper and go straight to bed to
get rested for the next day’s work.
Mrs. Tumble-bug did not understand then, and perhaps never will learn,
that if she would stop doing things in the hardest way and begin doing
them in the easiest way, she might get a great deal of work done in a
day and still have time to rest. If one were to tell her so, she might
think that meant laziness, but it would not, you know. It is always
worth while to make one’s head save one’s feet, and when a single head
could save six feet it would certainly be worth while. Still, although
Mrs. Tumble-bug never dreamed of such a thing, she probably enjoyed
work about as much as her neighbors enjoyed play.