Part 22

In a few minutes the chipyard was all afloat, and the fire effectually checked. The storm which, unnoticed by us, had been gathering all day, and which was the only one of any note we had that summer, continued to rage all night, and before morning had quite subdued the cruel enemy whose approach we had viewed with such dread.

--Prom "Roughing it in the Bush."

PICCOLA.

BY CELIA LEIGHTON THAXTER.

Poor, sweet Piccola! Did you hear What happened to Piccola, children dear? 'Tis seldom Fortune such favor grants As fell to this little maid of France.

'Twas Christmas time, and her parents poor Could hardly drive the wolf from the door, Striving with poverty's patient pain Only to live till summer again.

No gift for Piccola! sad were they When dawned the morning of Christmas day! Their little darling no joy might stir; St. Nicholas nothing would bring to her!

But Piccola never doubted at all That something beautiful must befall Every child upon Christmas day, And so she slept till the dawn was gray.

And full of faith, when at last she woke, She stole to her shoe as the morning broke; Such sounds of gladness filled all the air, 'Twas plain St. Nicholas had been there.

In rushed Piccola, sweet, half wild-- Never was seen such a joyful child-- "See what the good saint brought!" she cried, And mother and father must peep inside.

Now such a story I never heard! There was a little shivering bird! A sparrow, that in at the window flew, Had crept into Piccola's tiny shoe!

"How good poor Piccola must have been!" She cried, as happy as any queen, While the starving sparrow she fed and warmed, And danced with rapture, she was so charmed.

Children, this story I tell to you, Of Piccola sweet and her bird, is true. In the far-off land of France, they say, Still do they live to this very day.

DEFINITIONS:--Dawned, began to grow light. Befall, happen. Shivering, trembling from cold. Tiny, very small.

THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL.

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel, And the former called the latter "Little Prig"; Bun replied: "You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together To make up a year And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut."

STRANGE STORIES OF ANTS.

I. WHITE ANTS.

BY HENRY DIAMOND.

The white ant is a small insect, the body being of a yellowish white color, and repulsive in appearance. This tiny earth-dweller lives almost entirely on wood. When a tree is cut down, white ants immediately swarm toward the food thus unwittingly provided for them by man.

You might reside in Africa for many years and never see one of these ants, for they live underground; but their ravages confront the explorer at almost every step. You build a house in Uganda. For a short time you fancy that you have pitched upon the only spot in the country where there are no white ants. But one day the doorposts totter, and lintel and rafters come down with a crash. You look at a section of any one of the wrecked timbers, and find that the whole inside has been eaten away.

The apparently solid logs of the whole house are now all mere cylinders of bark, and through the thickest of them you could push your little finger. The household furniture--in fact everything made of wood--has been attacked and utterly ruined. Indeed, the ants will gnaw through most substances except earthenware, glass, iron, and tin. So greatly are these tiny creatures feared in certain parts of Africa that, in those districts, wooden trunks are never carried by experienced travelers.

The white ant is never visible. Why it should not show itself is strange--it is stone blind. But its modesty is really due to a desire for self-protection; for the moment it shows itself above ground it finds a dozen enemies waiting to devour it. Still, the white ant can never procure food until it does come above the surface of the soil.

Night is the great feeding time in the tropics, but it is clear that darkness is no protection to the ant, and yet without coming out of the ground it cannot live. The difficulty is solved thus: It takes earth up with it. White ants may have reached the top of a tree, and yet they were underground not long ago. They took up soil with them, building it into tunnel-huts as they moved upward; and in these huts they lived securely, feasting on the wood of the tree, around which they had built solid walls of earth.

Millions of trees, in some districts, are plastered over with mud tubes, galleries, and chambers. It is not unusual to find a tree having thousands of pounds of earth packed around it. The earth is conveyed by the insects up a central pipe, with which all the various galleries communicate, and which, at the downward end, connects with passages running deep into the ground.

The white ant's method of working is as follows: At the foot of a tree the tiniest hole cautiously opens in the soil close to the bark. A small head appears with a tiny grain of earth clasped in its jaws. Against the tree trunk this grain is deposited and the head is withdrawn. Again the little creature returns with another grain, which is laid beside the first, tight against it, and the builder once more disappears underground in search of more of these unquarried building stones.

A third grain is not placed against the tree, but against the former grains; a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth grain follow, and the plan of a foundation begins to suggest itself. The grains are formed into a semicircular wall, and the work is pushed forward by many thousands of the little masons. As the wall grows higher and higher, it takes the shape of a long perpendicular tunnel running up the side of the tree--a marvel of architectural skill.