The New Life
It is May—almost the end of May, indeed, and the
Mayflowers have finished their blooming for this year. It is growing
too warm for those delicate violets and hepaticas who dare to brave even
March winds, and can bear snow better than summer heats.
Down at the edge of the pond the tall water-grasses
and rushes are tossing their heads a little in the wind, and swinging a
little, lightly and lazily, with the motion of the water; but the water
is almost clear and still this morning, scarcely rippled, and in its beautiful,
broad mirror reflecting the chestnut-trees on the bank, and the little
points of land that run out from the shore, and give foothold to the old
pines standing guard day and night, summer and winter, to watch up the
pond and down.
If we come close to the edge where the rushes
are growing, and look down through the clear water, we shall see some uncouth
and clumsy black bugs crawling upon the bottom of the pond. They
have six legs, and are covered with a coat of armor laid plate over plate.
It looks hard and horned; and the insect himself has a dull, heavy way
with him, and might be called very stupid were it not for his eagerness
in catching and eating every little fly and mosquito that comes within
his reach. His eyes grow fierce and almost bright; and he seizes
with open mouth, and devours all day long, if he can find any thing suited
to his taste.
I am afraid you will think he is not very
interesting, and will not care to make his acquaintance. But, let
me tell you, something very wonderful is about to happen to him; and if
you stay and watch patiently, you will see what I saw once, and have never
forgotten.
Here he is crawling in mud under the water
this May morning: out over the pond shoot the flat water-boatmen, and the
water-spiders dance and skip as if the pond were a floor of glass; while
here and there skims a blue dragon-fly, with his fine, firm wings that
look like the thinnest gauze, but are really wondrously strong for all
their delicate appearance.
The dull, black bug sees all these bright,
agile insects; and, for the first time in his life, he feels discontented
with his own low place in the mud. A longing creeps through him that
is quite different from the customary longing for mosquitoes and flies.
"I will creep up the stem of this rush," he thinks; "and perhaps, when
I reach the surface of the water, I can dart like the little flat boatmen,
or, better than all, shoot through the air like the blue-winged dragon-fly."
But, as he crawls toilsomely up the slippery stem, the feeling that he
has no wings like the dragon-fly makes him discouraged and almost despairing.
At last, however, with much labor he has reached the surface, has crept
out of the water, and, clinging to the green stem, feels the spring air
and sunshine all about him. Now let him take passage with the boatmen,
or ask some of the little spiders to dance. Why doesn't he begin
to enjoy himself?
Alas! see his sad disappointment.
After all this toil, after passing some splendid chances of good breakfasts
on the way up, and spending all his strength on this one exploit, he finds
the fresh air suffocating him, and a most strange and terrible feeling
coming over him, as his coat-of-mail, which until now was always kept wet,
shrinks, and seems even cracking off while the warm air dries it.
"Oh," thinks the poor bug, "I must die!
It was folly in me to crawl up here. The mud and the water were good
enough for my brothers, and good enough for me too, had I only known it;
and now I am too weak, and feel too strangely, to attempt going down again
the way I came up."
See how uneasy he grows, feeling about in
doubt and dismay, for a darkness is coming over his eyes. It is the
black helmet, a part of his coat-of-mail; it has broken off at the top,
and is falling down over his face. A minute more, and it drops below
his chin; and what is his astonishment to find, that, as his old face breaks
away, a new one comes in its place, larger, much more beautiful, and having
two of the most admirable eyes!—two, I say, because they look like two,
but each of them is made up of hundreds of little eyes. They stand
out globe-like on each side of his head, and look about over a world unknown
and wonderful to the dull, black bug who lived in the mud.
The sky seems bluer, the sunshine brighter,
and the nodding grass and flowers more gay and graceful. Now he lifts
this new head to see more of the great world; and behold! as he moves,
he is drawing himself out of the old suit of armor, and from two neat little
cases at its sides come two pairs of wings, folded up like fans, and put
away here to be ready for use when the right time should come: still half
folded they are, and must be carefully spread open and smoothed for use.
And while he trembles with surprise, see how
with every movement he is escaping from the old armor, and drawing from
their sheaths fine legs, longer and far more beautifully made and colored
than the old; and a slender body that was packed away like a spy-glass,
and is now drawn slowly out, one part after another; until at last the
dark coat-of-mail dangles empty from the rushes, and above it sits a dragon-fly
with great, wondering eyes, long, slender body, and two pairs of delicate,
gauzy wings,—fine and firm as the very ones he had been watching but an
hour ago.
The poor black bug who thought he was dying
was only passing out of his old life to be born into a higher one; and
see how much brighter and more beautiful it is!
 And
now shall I tell you how, months ago, the mother dragon-fly dropped into
the water her tiny eggs, which lay there in the mud, and by and by hatched
out the dark, crawling bugs, so unlike the mother that she does not know
them for her children, and, flying over the pond, looks down through the
water where they crawl among the rushes, and has not a single word to say
to them; until, in due time, they find their way up to the air, and pass
into the new winged life.
If you will go to some pond when spring is
ending or summer beginning, and find among the water-grasses such an insect
as I have told you of, you may see all this for yourselves; and you will
say with me, dear children, that nothing you have ever known is more wonderful.
~ Jane Andrews~
"The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children"
(1888)
|