THE BABES IN THE WOOD
"Nature and life speak very early to man."--FROEBEL.
A great many years ago three little girls lived in an old-fashionedhouse in the East. They had a very lovely home, and a kind father andmother, who tried to make them happy. All through the summer they usedto roam over the hills and fields, catching butterflies, watchingthe birds and bees at work, and studying the flowers and trees in thebeautiful meadows and woods. Then when winter came, and the days grewcold, they went to school; and in the evening, when the fire was burningbrightly, they read and studied in books about all they had seen in thesummer.
Besides all these lovely things, and perhaps best of all, they had avery large yard to play in, so large that it took up a whole block, andseemed like a little farm in the middle of the town. There was a lovelylawn and flower beds; a vegetable garden, barnyard and stable; and anorchard where all kinds of fruit trees grew, apple, peach, pear, andmany others. A cow lived down in the meadows of clover, and old Bob,the horse, was sometimes turned out to pasture there. But nicest ofall, there was the wood yard. You must remember that every winter, wherethese little girls lived, the snow fell, and lay so deep on the roadsthat no one could bring in wood from the forest, and without it all thepeople would have frozen in their cold homes.
So every September the gates were thrown wide open, and into the yardload after load of wood was drawn and piled up under the shed. Then,when it was too cold to play out on the hills, the little girls used tohave a fine time in the yard, piling up the wood, making beds, tables,chairs, and stoves of the sticks that had once been the waving branchesand strong, sturdy trunks of trees.
Toward spring they often found a strange yellow powder on the groundunder the wood. At first they played with it, calling it flour, and madepies and cakes out of it. But at last they began to wonder where theflour came from, and after watching and studying a long time this iswhat they found out.
But first I must tell you that all the time the three little girls werehappy and busy in this beautiful place, they were not the only familythere. There were the robins' children, whose mammas were trying to makethem good and happy too. There were the beetles' children, the ants'children, and families of toads, butterflies, and spiders. And whilethe three little girls were playing with the sticks of wood, there lay,tucked snugly away inside of them, many families of children, warm andsafe in their wooden home.
Now I want the smallest of you little children to hold up her hand. Howsmall it is compared with your body! Now let us see the little fingeron that hand,--it is smaller still; and now look at the nail onthat finger: the brothers and sisters of one of these families werealtogether about as large as that tiny nail. Their mamma was a wasp,with light, gauzy wings and a strong body with a long sting on the endof it, about the length of a needle. With this little sting or saw, asit really was, she had bored many holes in the wood when it was stilla green tree, and at the bottom of each hole she had laid a tiny egg.There it lay for a long time, all white and still, until one day itcracked open, and out came a funny little white grub, with six shortwhite feet, and black jaws very strong and large for such a tiny thing.This little creature had never had anything to eat, and as it was veryhungry indeed, it fell to eating--what do you think? Wood--its ownhouse! You wouldn't like a stick of wood for your breakfast, I know, butthe wasp-mamma knew what her little grub-children would want, so sheput them in just the right place; for they couldn't have eaten anythingelse. And the hungry little grubs ate and ate and ate as long as theycould, pushing away from the hole the part they did not want, and thisfell upon the ground as the strange yellow powder the children found inthe wood-yard, every spring.
And so, while the little girls were placing away in the sunshine thelittle grubs were eating away in the wood, until at last, one day, theygrew satisfied, and one after another went to sleep. There they lay intheir dark homes, fast asleep, through long weeks, while the snow wasmelting and the grass coming up, and the birds and bees beginning theirsummer work again; until one day these lazy little creatures, that hadnever done anything in their lives but eat and sleep, woke up and beganto stretch themselves. But what had happened to them? Instead of thesoft white bodies they had gone to sleep with, they now had black onesand four gauzy wings; while six slender legs had taken the place of thesix short ones. There were still the strong black jaws to do all needfulwork with, and in addition, delicate mouth-parts, for their food was nowto be the honey from flowers. In fact, they looked and were just liketheir mamma, the gauzy wasp. One after another they crept to the end ofthe passage that led from their dark homes to the bright world without.They stood one minute at the little dark hole, and then, spreading theirwings, flitted out into the beautiful world of sunshine and flowers.