Part 3

"Let me see," said her mother, "perhaps it will be about the little creatures--grasshoppers and katydids, butterflies and bees."

"Goody!"

"Pooh!" said Jimmie, "I don't see what you want to know of those old things. I'd much rather hear about porcupines. There isn't anything to say about a grasshopper except that it hops."

"Isn't there, my son? Well, that shows that you don't use your eyes. Suppose some one said there was nothing to say about you except that you whistle?"

"Well, what is there about an old grasshopper, anyhow?"

"I don't know, but Ben will."

"But tell us something, mum," urged Jimmie, who loved his mother dearly, and was certain she knew more than anybody else, in part because she had been to college, but chiefly because she was his mother.

"Let me see," said Mrs. Reece, "I shall have to think about it." Both of the children came as close to her as they could, while she continued:

"What a strange world it would be if there were no insects in it! We should have no little crickets chirping in the sunny fields or in the dark corners and cracks of our houses. There would be no katydids singing all night, no clacking of the locusts in the tall grass along dusty roads, no drowsy hum of bees. There would be no little ants and big ants digging out underground tunnels and carrying the grains of sand as far from their doorways as possible. There would be no brightly colored moths and butterflies flitting from flower to flower. We should find no sparkling fairy webs spun anew for us every morning."

"But, mother, all these creatures aren't insects," said Jimmie.

"Yes, they are, dear. It is hard to believe that they all belong to the same family called insecta, but they do."

"Mother, what's that word mean?"

"It doesn't mean anything more than cut up into parts. You see, Betty, all these insect bodies are made up of separate rings joined nicely together. If you look carefully you will find that behind the head there is another distinct part. This is called the thorax, which means chest. Behind that there is a pointed part of the body, which is called the abdomen. Then, if you look again, you will see that all these little creatures are alike in that they have six jointed legs."

"And are they all good, like the bee and the butterfly?" asked Betty, who wasn't always a good little girl herself, and who thought it would be much nicer if insects were naughty sometimes.

"Not all, dear," answered Mrs. Reece; "some do us real service, but others are troublesome; insects are such hungry little fellows, and they don't have chocolate cake every day to keep them from getting hungry. They are hungry when they are babies and hungry when they grow up. Some eat all they can see--like a little boy I know--and some prefer the tender leaves and twigs. Some care only for the sweet sap flowing into the new leaves and buds. And still others like best the tender new roots of plants."

"Mother, what are the baddest ones?" asked Betty.

"Pooh! I know," said Jimmie; "the beetles are, because they eat everything. Why, they'd eat the buttons off your coat or the nose off your face or--"

"Jim! Jim! do tell the truth! The beetles, and bugs, too, are the most troublesome. Many of the bugs are such tiny little creatures that it is hard to realize that they can hurt a plant. But bugs have sucking beaks. With these beaks they bore into the leaves or the buds of the plant, and then by means of tiny muscles at the back of the mouth they pump up the sap. To be sure, one little pump could do no harm; but think of millions of little sucking beaks, millions of little pumps busy at work on a single plant! Do you remember the pansies mother had in the winter, and how they were all covered by green plant-lice? Well, those are bugs called aphids. You remember they were pale green, just the color of the plant, and so transparent and soft they looked most harmless. The scale insects are very troublesome, too, but mother doesn't know anything about them."

"Oh, I know what they are," announced Jimmie, "they get into the fruit trees."

"And sometimes onto shrubs, too. Mother has heard of a scale insect out in California which has been a great nuisance to fruit-growers. A certain ladybug finds this cottony-cushion scale a tender morsel, so many ladybugs were taken out there to help the owners of the fruit farms get rid of the scale."

"Did they carry them all the way out, mother?"

"Yes," answered Jimmie; "they got a Pullman car for them, and Mr. and Mrs. Ladybug and family travelled in style."

"Mother, tell Jim to be still." Betty, not unlike other little sisters, hated to be teased by her brother.

"And now, let me see," said Mrs. Reece. "I don't know that I can tell you any more until I know more myself. Yes, I do know what baby beetles are called. They are called grubs, and they live in the ground until it is time for them to turn into grown-up beetles. While they are babies they eat as much and as fast as they can, as no baby but a beetle should. The more they eat the sooner they come out into the bright world as a June-bug or some other kind of beetle. They eat all the tender little roots they can find. This is very nice--"

"For Mary Ann, but rather hard on Abraham."

"You horrid boy," said Betty, "you don't even let me hear a story in peace! It's very nice what, mother?"

"It's very nice for the little grubs, but it's rather hard on the plants, for if too many roots are nibbled away the plants die. The caterpillars are great eaters, too."

Betty leaned over and whispered something to her mother; then they both giggled.