Part 5

The Robin was now at work on the berry. He pecked it and poked it on that broad flat part of the big branch, and he ate seeds, and all the large pieces of berry he pulled off. But some of the berry slid into a knot hole, and Mr. Robin did not get the whole berry after all. He soon flew away--perhaps back to that same bush where the berry grew and where he hoped to find another.

When Anthony Ant had waited in his safe place a long time and found that the Robin did not come back to the branch, it seemed all right to come out of the bark hiding place for a look at the world from that spot.

Oh, but he was far, far away from the ground now! Even high bushes did not make him dizzy, but this high tree almost did. He shut his eyes a second and then took another look. This time he could keep them open without feeling shivers up and down his spine, so he sat down to think. First of all, though, before he could make any plans, he had to get the sticky juice off, and it seemed to Anthony Ant that he never had done so much scrubbing in his life. A lucky thing it was for him that he had strapped his things on good and tight, for he was glad enough now to have all the things in his little case. As well as he could without any water, he scraped and rubbed and polished himself as he had been taught, and as his wash cloth was still rather wet from the last washing he had taken that morning he managed very well indeed.

There were little drops of juice the Robin had spattered where he poked at the berry. These Anthony Ant drank up right away, and then thought of the knot hole where the remainder of the berry had rolled. He ran to look, and, sure enough, there it was! The Robin’s bill could not possibly have reached it, but nothing was easier than for Anthony Ant to go into the hole after the berry, so into the hole he went.

He tugged and he pulled, and he pulled and he tugged, and by and by he had the berry--all that was left of it--out on the flat part of the branch where he could eat it comfortably. Ho! After all, this was not so bad. It was lovely up in the tree, and almost as good as a picnic to be sitting there with nothing to do but to smell the nice air that mixed with the sweet scent of the berry juice. If only the Ladybug and the small Spider, Size Two could be there also! He opened his lunch basket and took out a piece of plain bread--plain all but its shape, for it was cut in a wild-rose shape. This he dipped into the berry juice and ate it in peace--that is, he ate in peace for awhile, but not for long, for as he glanced along the branch he saw two great eyes looking at him from what looked like a mountain of fur!

EXPLORING A TREE

It is no wonder that poor Anthony Ant thought this world was just nothing but one scare after another. He seemed always to be grabbing at his things to save them and running off somewhere. Now he clutched at his basket and case and dashed under that loose piece of bark so fast that he dropped a sandwich. But he was thankful to get away after any fashion.

The great mountain of fur came slowly along the branch, and as the Ant watched he saw the mountain of fur had an enormous brushlike tail. Then he knew the thing was a Squirrel, and, however bad a Squirrel might be, it did not eat Ants, anyway. But it had feet and might step on Anthony, so the Ant kept under cover to see what happened.

[Illustration: _The Squirrel did not speak_]

The Squirrel did not speak, but went along the branch and gave a jump to another branch so far away that the Ant held his breath, thinking the Squirrel surely must have fallen. But not at all! Mr. Squirrel was safe and sound over on the other side of the tree before you could say his name, almost.

Then the Ant tried coming out once more, and this time he ate the sandwich he had dropped and a little more of the berry. Then he thought it might be a long time before he found another berry bush again, so he left the remainder of the berry to dry in the sun, since dried berries can be easily packed to carry, and there is no danger of juice getting over the other things in the basket. The taste is sweet for a long time too.

Anthony Ant thought he would better see what a tree was like now that he was in one, and after he had explored it he could go down to the ground and off around the remainder of the world. It would save time to see this tree now, and he would not have to climb another. One tree must be more or less like all the others. So he tried one branch after another. If he had thought he was alone in that tree after the Robin and the Squirrel had left it, he was very much mistaken. It was full of people--or rather, creatures.

The first one he met was a yellow Caterpillar different from any he had seen before. After that he saw a small Measuring Worm that tries to measure everything it travels over, inch by inch. Inchworm is its other name. Then came a funny Bug that looked at him out of the corners of his eyes in such a queer way that Anthony Ant knew it would be no use to try to talk to him, as the Bug did not look like one that wanted to talk to any one. Then came a branch with a lot of tiny red Spiders not much of any size at all. They were friendly enough and asked him to play tag with them, but he had no wish to play with them, as he was afraid he might step on some of them or knock them off the branch, and that would never do!

As Anthony Ant walked out on one of the leafiest branches of all, he saw where the Robin had once lived, for there was a large nest. He knew it at once by the pictures of nests his mother had shown him when he was a tiny baby Ant.

No one was at home in this nest. The young birds had been hatched many weeks before, and learned to fly, and were too big to have to be cuddled in nests any more. It was interesting to see a real nest, anyway, and the Ant began to think he had learned enough so far on his trip to make a book good enough for schools.

He was feeling pretty puffed up at being so smart, when all at once another thing happened to make him forget everything but running off to hide again. There was the worst hammering under him you could think of. Anthony Ant just scuttered up to a higher twig right away and peeked down.

“Tap, tap, tap!” went the noise, and my! It was nothing but another Bird. This one had the red on his head instead of on his breast like Mr. Robin. Since Anthony Ant knew that this hammering Bird was a Woodpecker and hunted for Grubs and Bugs in tree trunks, he crawled out on to the stem of a leaf where there was no chance for a big Bird to light, and just hid in a fold of the leaf until the Woodpecker flew away.

The next thing that Anthony Ant found was something that made him give a glad cry. It was a tiny green Worm--the very sort his mother had sent him after lots of times to get for the larder. This would be food for him for many meals, and, since Worms do not just walk into your lunch basket when you tell them to, Anthony watched his chance, gave a spring, and caught the small green Worm as Ants have been taught to catch small green Worms since Ants and Worms were made. Though it seems cruel, it really was one of the things not cruel at all, and Anthony Ant had a good supply of food for his journey for one while.

All the remainder of the day Anthony explored the great tree. Never had he dreamed there could be so many things in one tree before. It was like a big garden and menagerie and shop and city besides. Why, you could get almost anything you wanted in the tree! He found that some Ants that looked a bit different from his own family, and from any other Ants he had seen, were living there in the soft inner wood of the trunk, and not wishing any better sort of home than that. They seemed rather friendly and asked him to stop to see their colony.

“We must be sort of cousins,” said one of them, stopping in his work, “and I’ll look in our photograph album right away and see if we have your picture in it. Come into the parlor.”

Anthony went inside, but the place had a stuffy, woodeny, musty smell to him, and he was quite sure he would not like to be a tree Ant and have to live there.

They looked over the album, and oh me, oh my! There seemed to be no end to the cousins those tree Ants had! There were pictures of baby Ants, and growing-up Ants, and grown-up Ants. There were Ants photographed each alone, and with other Ants in groups; pictures of Ants at picnics, and at school, Ants in graduating classes, and at golf and tennis and baseball, and swimming, and fishing, and going abroad, and in the company of other notable Ants, “reading from left to right,” and all that sort of thing--but never a picture of any Ant like Anthony Ant, nor like any of his family and their own cousins.

“Nope,” said the tree Ant. “I’m afraid you don’t belong to us at all. But have some supper with us, anyway. We’d like to hear about other Ants that are not like us. It would be a pleasant change.”

So Anthony Ant stayed to supper and found, at any rate, they had a good cook, and the salad of cold boiled Dragon Fly was delicious.

Then the Ant said good-by and went out upon the tree highway again. He wanted to collect the dried berry for his lunch basket, and it might take some time to find where he had left it, as he had traveled pretty nearly all over the tree.

He found it before the twilight came, and, as it was too late to think of traveling far on the ground that night, he made up his mind to stay up in the tree until morning. The berry was not quite dry enough to pack, anyhow. So he crawled out of sight under the loose piece of bark where he had hidden from the Robin, and thought the morning sun would dry the berry in plenty of time for him to have it by the time he was ready to go down the tree.

[Illustration: _When an Owl in plain sight called out, “Hoot!” Anthony smiled_]

It had been a busy day, and he was glad to settle himself early for a night’s sleep. Mr. Bat, coming out from a hollow in the tree, swooped close to Anthony Ant, but Anthony only smiled, and when an Owl in plain sight called out, “Hoot!” Anthony smiled again, and of course you know it was because he had the pass that said:

+--------------------------+ | T A T F | | H N H R | | I T R E | | S H O E | | O U | | I N G F | | S Y H R | | O | | T A A M | | O N N | | T Y H | | P A | | A N R | | S I M | | S G | | H | | T | +--------------------------+

A VENTURE OF MOTTOES

The first thing to be done in the morning was to pack up what was left of the berry, of course. After his long sleep, and a scrubbing at a dew basin in a hollow of a leaf, and a good breakfast of some of the things in his lunch basket, the Ant felt ready to walk miles. So he packed up the dried berry and started down the tree, eager to be off over the field again and to see some more of the world.

For a wide space under the tree the traveling was easy, for the ground was fairly smooth and not cluttered up with things to be climbed over and under. But that soon came to an end, and the same sort of trip he had taken yesterday, when he went over and under, and down and up things all the time, had to be taken again for a long distance. This might be the way the entire journey around the world would be, for all he knew.

Everywhere along the way the whole field was busy with life. Everyone was working busily, and not one creature he met was sitting idle. Half of the ones he met did not so much as see him, they were so busy, and the other half took time merely to look at him, or to say, “Good-morning!” in such a hurry that they hardly knew they were saying it.

One old Grasshopper, however, stopped his cutting of a grass stem for a minute. “What!” exclaimed the Grasshopper. “Do you mean to tell me you are going off for a picnic, you young rascal? You ought to be at home working with your family. You are a bad boy, sir! The very idea! I never heard of such a thing! If you were my son, I should have to give you such a whipping that it would be a long time before you would forget it. What is the matter with you? Are you lame or anything?”

“No, sir,” answered Anthony Ant, rather frightened at the Grasshopper’s cross voice. “I am not going to a picnic, and I am not lame, either.”

“Then tell me, why aren’t you at home working?”

Well, of course, you know Anthony Ant had to tell all about his reason for leaving home, and at the mere mention of Dr. Alexander Beetle Bug the old Grasshopper put back his head and laughed so hard that he almost spilled a large drop of molasses out of his mouth.

“Well,” said he, when he could stop laughing long enough to speak, “I’ll let you go without the whipping. You won’t need it, for, if Dr. Bug has prescribed that trip for you, you won’t need any punishment from me. His will be quite enough. His dose will be stiff enough to fix you!” And he went on laughing so hard that the Ant thought the old Grasshopper must be crazy.

[Illustration: _“Look here, son!” cried the Grasshopper_]

“Look here, son!” cried the Grasshopper, stopping his laugh quickly when he saw the Ant was about to run away in disgust. “Now don’t be angry. Only foolish fellows get angry at nothing at all. That is a piece of advice worth pasting in your hat: _Don’t get angry at nothing at all, and don’t get angry at anything!_”

“I haven’t any hat,” said Anthony Ant sulkily.

“So I have noticed,” said the Grasshopper. “Where is it? Did you run so fast away from work that you did not stop even to put on your hat? You must be a Gubblechook! And yet you took time to get your lunch basket and other things, I notice. You don’t look much like a Gubblechook, either--not yet, anyway.”

“What is a Gubblechook?” asked the Ant.

“A Gubblechook,” replied the Grasshopper, “is a fellow who is afraid of work--so afraid of it that even if he could see the shadow of it coming around a corner he would run and hide where he could not see it. You can always tell a Gubblechook when you see one too.”

“How?” asked the Ant.

“Oh, by his looks,” said the Grasshopper. “He begins to look sort of gubbly and chooky after awhile. His eyes lose their shine that is better than Fireflies’ sparks. His mouth droops like a withered squash blossom. His hair falls around over his face and flops in strings around his ears. His tongue hangs out after awhile. His nose points down for keeps, and he ends by sleeping forever and ever, and then seven more forevers besides. If you don’t look out, you’ll be a Gubblechook before long. Better paste this in your hat too: _Don’t be afraid of work!_ It is the only thing that will keep you from turning into a Gubblechook, you’d better believe! But where _is_ your hat?”

“A Field Mouse ate it,” answered the Ant.

The Grasshopper laughed harder than ever.

“That isn’t a joke!” said Anthony Ant with a pout.

“Well, I should think not!” exclaimed the Grasshopper. “Hats don’t grow on every bush these days, I can tell you! But, just to show you I am not making fun of you and that I really want you to be something better than a Gubblechook, I’ll make you a present of as nice a hat as you ever had in your life.”

The Ant was ashamed of himself. “I could not take it,” said he. “Besides, Mother would not think I ought to take it when I can’t pay for it, I know.”

“Nonsense!” said the Grasshopper. “She’d let you earn it, though, wouldn’t she?”

“Well, yes,” the Ant answered.

“All right, then,” said the Grasshopper. “Let me see if you have forgotten how to work. First, I’ll show you the hat to let you know I am honest when I say it is the best one you ever had--or I should say, the best you _can_ have, for of course you have not had it yet.”

From a swinging grass back of him the Grasshopper brought out a hat that would exactly fit Anthony Ant, and it was made of the finest straw to be had in the whole wide field. It certainly was a beauty!

“Now,” the Grasshopper went on, “I want a certain hollow under a stone made a little deeper or wider or something, so I can get in and out better. That stone covers my favorite rest room, but the hollow is too small for me to wiggle into and out of easily. Here is a shovel.”

Well, sir, Anthony gave his basket and case into the Grasshopper’s care, and went at the job for all he was worth. By and by he had the hollow big enough so that when the Grasshopper tried it the size was the very thing.

“I can see that you are still able to keep the name of Anthony Ant of Ant-Hill Manor,” said the Grasshopper. “It is a pity to let your good strong muscles get flabby. A Gubblechook’s muscles always do, you know. So not only am I going to give you the hat, but I am going to give you two pieces of advice all pasted in, into the bargain. Look inside the hat.”

Anthony Ant looked inside. The Grasshopper was not a Gubblechook, anyway, for he had worked hard to make the fine lettering of the words, and he had taken much pains with the hatband he had made himself.

Anthony read the words inside the hat:

“DON’T GET ANGRY AT NOTHING AT ALL, AND DON’T GET ANGRY AT ANYTHING! DON’T BE AFRAID OF WORK!”

He thanked the Grasshopper, took his hat and put it on, and, with basket and case, marched on once more over and under the scenery.

A VENTURE IN QUESTIONS

The afternoon was at its hottest when Anthony Ant next stopped for a rest. There was such a fine mossy stone in the shadow of a thick clump of weeds that it made the very place to camp out for awhile.

He took off his new hat and placed it carefully where no Field Mouse could get it. He was a pretty wise Ant now, he thought, for he had learned a few things in his tramp, and one was that Field Mice and hats are not to be trusted together if you ever want to see the hats again. Then he tasted some of the dried berry and took a little nip at the Worm he had caught in the tree, and found his sandwiches were nearly gone. There would be about enough to last him for his supper, and then he would have to get on as well as he could without sandwiches. His cheese was nearly gone too. What a good time they had had at that Wild-Rose Tea House--they three! He and the small Spider, Size Two and the Ladybug had been such very good friends.

“Hello!” said a voice suddenly. “What on earth are you doing there eating such nice things all alone?”

Anthony Ant was never more surprised in his life! There sat a Firefly. You would not have guessed it to look at him, for there was not a bit of fire showing anywhere about him. The Ant knew him as a Firefly, though, because his mother had told him all about Fireflies when he was a little boy.

“It’s all I’ve got to eat,” said the Ant in answer to the Firefly’s question. “But I’ll give you a taste of anything you want, just the same.”

“You speak as though there wasn’t any more food to be had in the world,” said the Firefly. “Your voice sounded so solemn.”

[Illustration: _“It’s all I’ve got to eat,” said the Ant_]

“Well, if you hadn’t any more food except what was in your lunch basket, I guess your voice would sound solemn, too,” replied the Ant.

“It would not!” declared the Firefly very firmly. “Why should it, when there is plenty of food in the world? Just because your lunch basket is empty at times, is no reason for feeling solemn. If there was a famine, that would be different, but there is food all about you.”

“Yes, but you have to go catch it,” the Ant whined.

“Well, why not?” asked the Firefly.

Anthony Ant was about to say it was too hard work to have to go catch your food all the time, when he suddenly thought maybe the Firefly would call him a Gubblechook if he did not look out, so he kept still.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Firefly. “Don’t you know how to catch food?”

“Mercy, yes!” cried Anthony. “Look in my basket. I caught that.” And he pointed with one of his feelers to the little green Worm.

“Let’s see,” demanded the Firefly, and he peeked into the basket.

“Have a piece,” said Anthony Ant. “You’ll find it very fine and tender and juicy.”

“No, thanks,” replied the Firefly, “but I’ll taste this fancy pink cake, if you want me to.”

“Do!” said Anthony. “Take the whole of it!”

“Oh!” said the Firefly, as he took the cake. “Where have I seen and tasted such cakes before? Oh, I know! You must have been to the Wild-Rose Tea House!”