Among the Pond People
Page 7
THE CARELESS CADDIS WORM
When the Caddis Fly felt like laying eggs, she crawled down the stalk ofone of the pond plants and laid them there. She covered them withsomething sticky, so that they were sure to stay where she put them."There!" she said, as she crawled up to the air again. "My work isdone." Soon after this, she lay down for a long, long rest. What withflying, and visiting, and laying eggs, she had become very tired; and itwas not strange, for she had not eaten a mouthful since she got herwings.
This had puzzled the Dragon-Flies very much. They could not understandit, because they were always eating. They would have liked to ask herabout it, but they went to sleep for the night soon after she got up,and whenever she saw them coming she flew away. "I do not seem to feelhungry," said she, "so why should I eat? Besides," she added, "Icouldn't eat if I wanted to, my mouth is so small and weak. I ate agreat deal while I was growing--quite enough to last me--and it savestime not to bother with hunting food now."
When her eggs hatched, the larvae were slender, soft, six-footed babiescalled Caddis Worms. They were white, and they showed as plainly in thewater as a pond-lily does on the top of it. It is not safe to be whiteif one is to live in the water; certainly not unless one can swim fastand turn quickly. And there is a reason for this, as any one of the pondpeople will tell you. Even the fishes wear all their white on the underside of their bodies, so that if they swim near the top of the water, ahungry Fish Hawk is not so likely to see them and pounce down on them.
The Caddis Worms soon found that white was not a good color to wear, andthey talked of it among themselves. They were very bright larvae. One daythe biggest one was standing on a stem of pickerel-weed, when his sistercame toward him. She did not come very fast, because she was neitherswimming nor walking, but biting herself along. All the Caddis Worms didthis at times, for their legs were weak. She reached as far forward asshe could, and fastened her strong jaws in the weed, then she gave ajerk and pulled her body ahead. "It is a very good way to travel," saidshe, "and such a saving of one's legs." Now she was in so great a hurrythat sometimes when she pulled herself ahead, she turned ahalf-somersault and came down on her back.
"What is the matter?" called the Biggest Caddis Worm. "Don't hurry so.There is lots of time." That was just him, for he was lazy. Everybodysaid so.
"I must hurry," said she, and she breathed very fast with the whitebreathing hairs that grew on both sides of her body. She picked herselfup from her last somersault and stood beside her brother, near enough tospeak quite softly. "I have been getting away from Belostoma," she said,"and I was dreadfully afraid he would catch me."
"Well, you're all right now, aren't you?" asked her brother. And thatwas also like him. As long as he could have enough to eat and wascomfortable, he did not want to think about anything unpleasant.
"No, I'm not," she answered, "and I won't be so long as any hungry fishor water-bug can see me so plainly. I'm tired of being white."
"You are not so white as you were," said her brother. "None of uschildren are. Our heads and the front part of our bodies are turningbrown and getting harder." That was true, and he was particularlyhard-headed.
"Yes, but what about the rest of us?" said she, and surely there wassome excuse for her if she was impatient. "If Belostoma can see part ofme and chase that, he will find the rest of me rather near by."
"Keep quiet then, and see if you don't get hard and brown all over,"said he.
"I never shall," said she. "I went to the Clams and asked them if Iwould, and they said 'No.' I'm going to build a house to cover the backpart of my body, and you'd better do the same thing."
The Biggest Caddis Worm looked very much surprised. "Whatever made youthink of that?" said he.
"I suppose because there wasn't anything else to think of," said she."One has to think of something."
"I don't," said he.
She started away to where her other brothers and sisters were. "Whereare you going?" cried he.
"Going to build my house," answered she. "You'd better come too."
"Not now," said he. "I am waiting to get the rest of my breakfast. I'llcome by and by."
The Biggest Caddis Worm stood on the pickerel-weed and ate hisbreakfast. Then he stood there a while longer. "I do not think it iswell to work right after eating," he said. Below him in the water, hisbrothers and sisters were busily gathering tiny sticks, stones, and bitsof broken shell, with which to make their houses. Each Caddis Worm foundhis own, and fastened them together with a sort of silk which he pulledout of his body. They had nobody to show them how, so each planned tosuit himself, and no two were exactly alike.
"I'm going to make my house big enough so I can pull in my head and legswhen I want to," said one.
"So am I," cried all the other Caddis Worms.
After a while, somebody said, "I'm going to have an open door at theback of my house." Then each of his busy brothers and sisters cried, "Soam I."
When the tiny houses were done, each Caddis Worm crawled inside of hisown, and lay with head and legs outside the front door. The white partof their bodies did not show at all, and, if they wanted to do so, theycould pull their heads in. Even Belostoma, the Giant Water-Bug, mighthave passed close to them then and not seen them at all.
"Let's hook ourselves in!" cried one Caddis Worm, and all the othersanswered, "Let's."
So each hooked himself in with the two stout hooks which grew at the endof his body, and there they were as snug and comfortable as Clams.About this time the Big Brother came slowly along the stem ofpickerel-weed. "What," said he, "you haven't got your houses donealready?"
"Yes," answered the rest joyfully. "See us pull in our heads." And theyall pulled in their heads and poked them out again. He was the onlywhite-bodied person in sight.
"I must have a home," said he. "I wish one of you Worms would give meyours. You could make yourself another, you know. There is lots morestuff."
"Make it yourself," they replied. "Help yourself to stuff."
"But I don't know how," he said, "and you do."
"Whose fault is that?" asked his sister. Then she was afraid that hemight think her cross, and she added quickly, "We'll tell you how, ifyou'll begin."
The Biggest Caddis Worm got together some tiny sticks and stones andpieces of broken shell, but it wasn't very much fun working alone. Thenthey told him what to do, and how to fasten them to each other withsilk. "Be sure you tie them strongly," they said.
"Oh, that's strong enough," he answered. "It'll do, anyhow. If it comesto pieces I can fix it." His brothers and sisters thought he should makeit stouter, yet they said nothing more, for he would not have liked itif they had; and they had already said so once. When he crawled into hishouse and hooked himself in, there was not a Caddis Worm in sight, andthey were very proud to think how they had planned and built theirhouses. They did not know that Caddis Worms had always done so, and theythought themselves the first to ever think of such a thing.
The Biggest Caddis Worm's house was not well fastened together, andevery day he said, "I really must fix it to-morrow." But when to-morrowcame, it always proved to be to-day, and, besides, he usually foundsomething more interesting to be done. It took him a great deal of timeto change his skin, and that could not be easily put off. He grew sofast that he was likely to awaken almost any morning and find his headpoking through the top of his skin, and, lazy as he was, he would nothave the pond people see him around with a crack in the skin of hishead, right where it showed. So when this happened, he always pulled hisbody through the crack, and threw the old skin away. There was sure tobe a whole new one underneath, you know.
When they had changed their skin many times, the Caddis Worms becamemore quiet and thoughtful. At last the sister who had first planned tobuild houses, fastened hers to a stone, and spun gratings across bothits front and its back doors. "I am going to sleep," she said, "to growmy feelers and get ready to fly and breathe air. I don't want anybody toawaken me. All I want to do is to sleep and grow and b
reathe. The waterwill come in through the gratings, so I shall be all right. I couldn'tsleep in a house where there was not plenty of fresh water to breathe."Then she cuddled down and dozed off, and when her brothers and sistersspoke of her, they called her "the Caddis Nymph."
They did not speak of her many times, however, for they soon fastenedtheir houses to something solid, and spun gratings in their doorways andwent to sleep.
One day a Water-Adder came around where all the Caddis houses were."Um-hum," said he to himself. "There used to be a nice lot of CaddisWorms around here, and now I haven't seen one in ever so long. I supposethey are hidden away somewhere asleep. Well, I must go away from hereand find my dinner. I am nearly starved. The front half of my stomachhasn't a thing in it." He whisked his tail and went away, but that whiskhit a tiny house of sticks, stones, and bits of broken shell, and a fatsleeping Caddis Nymph rolled out. It was the Biggest Brother.
Soon Belostoma, the Giant Water-Bug, came that way. "What is this?" heexclaimed, as he saw the sleeping Caddis Nymph. "Somebody built a poorhouse to sleep in. You need to be cared for, young Caddis." He picked upthe sleeping Caddis Nymph in his stout forelegs and swam off. Nobodyknows just what happened after that.
When the other Caddis Nymphs awakened, they bit through their gratingsand had a good visit before they crawled out of the pond into their newhome, the air. "Has anybody seen my biggest brother?" asked one Nymphof another, but everybody answered, "No."
Each looked all around with his two far-apart eyes, and then theydecided that he must have awakened first and left the water before them.But you know that he could not have done so, because he could never be aCaddis Fly unless he finished the Nymph-sleep in his house, and he didnot do that. He had stopped being a Caddis Worm when he turned into aCaddis Nymph. Nobody will ever know just what did become of him unlessBelostoma tells--and Belostoma is not likely to tell.