HUMBLE HELPERS 113 



pretty, too, in their glossy red coats, each side so 

 evenly spotted with little black dots, that you never 

 could mistake them for any other bug or beetle. If 

 you are careful of them through the winter they will 

 fly out of the window in the spring and away they 

 will go to the cornfields, the fruit trees and the rose 

 bushes. For the aphids are very fond of the leaves 

 of all of these. Next summer watch the rose bushes 

 and the nasturtiums, and see if some ants will not 

 come and milk their little cows while you are watch- 

 ing. Look ever so carefully and you will see the ants 

 crawl up the stem, stroke the aphids with their 

 antennae, and drink up the tiny drops of honey-dew. 

 So whenever you find a lady-bug in the house in 

 the spring and sunamer, pick it up very carefully and 

 take it to the nearest rose bush or nasturtium or 

 apple tree or cornstalk. That is the way good 

 farmers do. 



Throughout all the world there are insects and 

 animals which do great service by preventing other 

 creatures from selfishly taking everything. The birds 

 keep caterpillars from eating all the leaves of the 

 trees; the toads and bats and spiders eat up many 

 of the flies and mosquitoes and troublesome moths; 

 while the woodpecker finds the borers which are hurt- 

 ing the trees by boring under the bark. 



Helpers are everywhere. We do not have to work 

 alone. Indeed, nothing in the world has to work 

 alone if it is working according to God's law. 



