“But they can’t talk, Auntie?”

“I am not so sure of that.  Their voices may be too fine and high-pitched for our great ears to hear.  I fancy there is a deal of conversation carried on in the grass and the bushes and the trees, that we know nothing about.”

“How funny!  What did you mean, Auntie, when you said the queen laid off all her flounces and furbelows.”

“I was rather fancifully describing her wings, dear, which she takes off herself when she enters the nest, having no further use for them.  There are three kinds of ants in every nest:  perfect males and females, and the workers.  There are many different races of ants, from the great white ant of Africa—­a terror to the natives, though in some respects his good friend—­down to the little red-and-yellow meadow ants so common among us.  The ants I have told you about, the Rufians and the Fuscans, are natives of America, and are found in New England.  The big black ant so common here, sometimes called the jet ant, is a carpenter and a wood-carver.  His great jaws bore through the hardest wood, and his pretty galleries and winding staircases penetrate through the beams and rafters of many an old mansion.  Not long ago I accidentally killed a carpenter ant, and in a few minutes a comrade appeared who slowly, and apparently with great labor and fatigue, bore away the body.  I felt as though I were looking on at a funeral.

“I wish I had time to tell you about the agricultural ant of Texas, and the umbrella ants of Florida, who cut bits of leaf from the orange-trees and march home with them in procession, holding each leaf in an upright position.  Fancy how odd they must look!  But we have talked long enough for this time about the little people, and I am sure you all agree with King Solomon that they are ‘exceeding wise.’”

“I never will step on an ant-hill again if I can possibly help it,” said Susie.  “It’s too bad to make those hard-working folks so much trouble.

“And I mean to put my ear close down to the ground,” said Nellie Dimock, “and listen and listen, so as to hear the ants talk to each other.”

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STORY OF OLD STAR.

“Say, Sam!” said Roy Tyler, as the two boys were driving old Brindle home from pasture the next evening, “don’t you wish she’d tell us some stories about horses?  I’m tired of hearing about cats and ants.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Sammy answered; “’twas funny about old Robber Grim.  There’s just such an old cat round our barn, catchin’ chickens and suckin’ eggs.  I’ve fired more rocks at that feller—­hit him once in the hind leg an’ he went off limpin’.”

“Well, I want a horse story, and I know she’d just as soon tell one as not, if somebody would only ask her.  Those girls will be wantin’ another cat story if we don’t start something else.  Girls always do like cats,” said Roy, a little scornfully.  “Say, Sam, you ask her, will you?”