Three Walking-Sticks from the forest had come to live in the big maple
tree near the middle of the meadow. Nobody knew exactly why they had
left the forest, where all their sisters and cousins and aunts lived.
Perhaps they were not happy with their relatives. But then, if one is a
Walking-Stick, you know, one does not care so very much about one's
family.
These Walking-Sticks had grown up the best way they could, with no
father or mother to care for them. They had never been taught to do
anything useful, or to think much about other people. When they were
hungry they ate some leaves, and never thought what they should eat the
next time that they happened to be hungry. When they were tired they
went to sleep, and when they had slept enough they awakened. They had
nothing to do but to eat and sleep, and they did not often take the
trouble to think. They felt that they were a little better than those
meadow people who rushed and scrambled and worked from morning until
night, and they showed very plainly how they felt. They said it was not
genteel to hurry, no matter what happened.
One day the Tree Frog was under the tree when the large Brown
Walking-Stick decided to lay some eggs. He saw her dropping them
carelessly around on the ground, and asked, "Do you never fix a place
for your eggs?"
"A place?" said the Brown Walking-Stick, waving her long and slender
feelers to and fro. "A place? Oh, no! I think they will hatch where they
are. It is too much trouble to find a place."
"Puk-r-r-rup!" said the Tree Frog. "Some mothers do not think it too
much trouble to be careful where they lay eggs."
"That may be," said the Brown Walking-Stick, "but they do not belong to
our family." She spoke as if those who did not belong to her family
might be good but could never be genteel. She had once told her brother,
the Five-Legged Walking-Stick, that she would not want to live if she
could not be genteel. She thought the meadow people very common.
The Five-Legged Walking-Stick looked much like his sister. He had the
same long, slender body, the same long feelers, and the same sort of
long, slender legs. If you had passed them in a hay-field, you would
surely have thought each a stem of hay, unless you happened to see them
move. The other Walking-Stick, their friend, was younger and green. You
would have thought her a blade of grass.
It is true that the brother had the same kind of legs as his sister,
but he did not have the same number. When he was young and green he had
six, then came a dreadful day when a hungry Nuthatch saw him, flew down,
caught him, and carried him up a tree. He knew just what to expect, so
when the Nuthatch set him down on the bark to look at him, he unhooked
his feet from the bark and tumbled to the ground. The Nuthatch tried to
catch him and broke off one of his legs, but she never found him again,
although she looked and looked and looked and looked. That was because
he crawled into a clump of ferns and kept very still.
His sister came and looked at him and said, "Now if you were only a
Spider it would not be long before you would have six legs again."
Her brother waved first one feeler and then the other, and said: "Do you
think I would be a Spider for the sake of growing legs? I would rather
be a Walking-Stick without any legs than to be a Spider with a
hundred." Of course, you know, Spiders never do have a hundred, and a
Walking-Stick wouldn't be walking without any, but that was just his way
of speaking, and it showed what kind of insect he was. His relatives all
waved their feelers, one at a time, and said, "Ah, he has the true
Walking-Stick spirit!" Then they paid no more attention to him, and
after a while he and his sister and their green little friend left the
forest for the meadow.
On the day when the grass was cut, they had sat quietly in their trees
and looked genteel. Their feelers were held quite close together, and
they did not move their feet at all, only swayed their bodies gracefully
from side to side. Now they were on the ground, hunting through the flat
piles of cut grass for some fresh and juicy bits to eat. The Tree Frog
was also out, sitting in a cool, damp corner of the grass rows. The
young Grasshoppers were kicking up their feet, the Ants were scrambling
around as busy as ever, and life went on quite as though neither men nor
Horses had ever entered the meadow.
"See!" cried a Spider who was busily looking after her web, "there comes
a Horse drawing something, and the farmer sitting on it and driving."
When the Horse was well into the meadow, the farmer moved a bar, and the
queer-looking machine began to kick the grass this way and that with its
many stiff and shining legs. A frisky young Grasshopper kicked in the
same way, and happened--just happened, of course--to knock over two of
his friends. Then there was a great scrambling and the Crickets
frolicked with them. The young Walking-Stick thought it looked like
great fun and almost wished herself some other kind of insect, so that
she could tumble around in the same way. She did not quite wish it, you
understand, and would never have thought of it if she had turned brown.
"Ah," said the Five-Legged Walking-Stick, "what scrambling! How very
common!"
"Yes, indeed!" said his sister. "Why can't they learn to move slowly and
gracefully? Perhaps they can't help being fat, but they might at least
act genteel."
"What is it to be genteel?" asked a Grasshopper suddenly. He had heard
every word that the Walking-Stick said.
"Why," said the Five-Legged Walking-Stick, "it is just to be genteel. To
act as you see us act, and to----"
Just here the hay-tedder passed over them, and every one of the
Walking-Sticks was sent flying through the air and landed on his back.
The Grasshoppers declare that the Walking-Sticks tumbled and kicked and
flopped around in a dreadfully common way until they were right side
up. "Why," said the Measuring Worm, "you act like anybody else when the
hay-tedder comes along!"
The Walking-Sticks looked very uncomfortable, and the brother and sister
could not think of anything to say. It was the young green one who spoke
at last. "I think," said she, "that it is much easier to act genteel
when one is right side up."
[Illustration]