Ways of Wood Folk eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 166 pages of information about Ways of Wood Folk.

Ways of Wood Folk eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 166 pages of information about Ways of Wood Folk.

At first he was sociable enough, and peaceable as one could wish; but one night, when it was chilly, he stowed himself away to sleep under the pillow.  When I laid my head upon it, he objected to the extra weight, and drove me ignominiously from my own bed.  Another time he crawled into a handkerchief.  When I picked it up to use it, after the light was out, he stung me on the nose, not understanding the situation.  In whacking him off I broke one of his legs, and made his wings all awry.  After that he would have nothing more to do with me, but kept to his own window as long as the fine weather lasted.

When the November storms came, he went up to a big crack in the window casing, whence he had emerged in the spring, and crept in, and went to sleep.  It was pleasant there, and at noontime, on days when the sun shone, it streamed brightly into his doorway, waking him out of his winter sleep.  As late as December he would come out occasionally at midday to walk about and spread his wings in the sun.  Then a snow-storm came, and he disappeared for two weeks.

[Illustration]

One day, when a student was sick, a tumbler of medicine had been carelessly left on the broad window sill.  It contained a few lumps of sugar, over which a mixture of whiskey and glycerine had been poured.  The sugar melted gradually in the sun, and a strong odor of alcohol rose from the sticky stuff.  That and the sunshine must have roused my hornet guest, for when I came back to the room, there he lay by the tumbler, dead drunk.

He was stretched out on his side, one wing doubled under him, a forward leg curled over his head, a sleepy, boozy, perfectly ludicrous expression on his pointed face.  I poked him a bit with my finger, to see how the alcohol affected his temper.  He rose unsteadily, staggered about, and knocked his head against the tumbler; at which fancied insult he raised his wings in a limp kind of dignity and defiance, buzzing a challenge.  But he lost his legs, and fell down; and presently, in spite of pokings, went off into a drunken sleep again.

All the afternoon he lay there.  As it grew cooler he stirred about uneasily.  At dusk he started up for his nest.  It was a hard pull to get there.  His head was heavy, and his legs shaky.  Half way up, he stopped on top of the lower sash to lie down awhile.  He had a terrible headache, evidently; he kept rubbing his head with his fore legs as if to relieve the pain.  After a fall or two on the second sash, he reached the top, and tumbled into his warm nest to sleep off the effects of his spree.

One such lesson should have been enough; but it wasn’t.  Perhaps, also, I should have put temptation out of his way; for I knew that all hornets, especially yellow-jackets, are hopeless topers when they get a chance; that when a wasp discovers a fermenting apple, it is all up with his steady habits; that when a nest of them discover a cider mill, all work, even the care of the young, is neglected.  They take to drinking, and get utterly demoralized.  But in the interest of a new experiment I forgot true kindness, and left the tumbler where it was.

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Ways of Wood Folk from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.