A JUNGLE LABOR-UNION 153 



loosened grain after grain, and as they came 

 free they were moistened, agglutinated, and 

 pressed back against her fore-legs. When at 

 last a good-sized ball was formed, she picked it 

 up, turned around and, after some fussy indeci- 

 sion, deposited it on the sand behind her. Then 

 she returned to the very shallow, round depres- 

 sion, and began to gather a second ball. 



I thought of the first handful of sand thrown 

 out for the base of Cheops, of the first brick 

 placed in position for the Great Wall, of a fresh- 

 cut trunk, rough-hewn and squared for a log- 

 cabin on Manhattan; of the first shovelful of 

 earth flung out of the line of the Panama Canal. 

 Yet none seemed worthy of comparison with even 

 what little I knew of the significance of this ant's 

 labor, for this was earnest of what would make 

 trivial the engineering skill of Egyptians, of 

 Chinese patience, of municipal pride and conti- 

 nental schism. 



Imagine sawing off a barn-door at the top of 

 a giant sequoia, growing at the bottom of the 

 Grand Canon, and then, with five or six children 

 clinging to it, descending the tree, and carrying 

 it up the canon walls against a subway rush of 

 rude people, who elbowed and pushed blindly 



