40 Next to the Ground 



birds may devour them, evidently feeling that 

 sudden death is much better than slow starva- 

 tion. 



If Joe had know^n all this he would have 

 watched the red fellows with keener eyes. 

 Even as it was, he noted that though they 

 worked hard, and showed themselves the hust- 

 lers of the air, they did not begin over-early 

 nor stick very late. Until the dew was off, 

 they clung to the nest, and if it stormed, did 

 not leave it at all. Upon fair days they be- 

 haved as though they had a rigorous eight-hour 

 law — every wing was folded close around 

 five o'clock. Whether they were commun- 

 ists, or had each an individual place, Joe could 

 not quite make out. He knew that the early 

 wasps slept perpendicularly, clinging to the 

 nest-pillar, or in a partly finished cell. When 

 the nest grew big, at night the whole face of it 

 was covered with wasps hanging flat, and other 

 wasps inside cells, head downward, and only 

 the heads showing. 



The hotter the day, the livelier and more 

 quarrelsome they became. Whenever the 

 thermometer hovered around ninety-five in the 

 shade, not a half hour passed but a knot of 

 brawlers fell down upon the porch, buzzing 

 mad anger with all their wings, biting and sting- 

 ing as hard as they could. Sometimes, though 

 not very often, a brawler was stung to death. 



