52 Next to the Ground 



on the piazza roof, he got up, picked up the 

 baby and the sheepskin, and took them out 

 upon the shady grass at the end of the house. 

 There he could see what the ants were doing. 

 In a way they were old friends of his. When 

 the flying ants swarmed in the spring he knew 

 danger of frost was over. They came out 

 with a rush, almost like the spray of a foun- 

 tain, lost their silver-gray wings pretty soon 

 after they touched ground, and became ordin- 

 ary big ants, black or reddish. Some of them 

 were almost an inch long, but did not sting 

 as viciously as the little red ones which were 

 the pest of midsummer housekeeping. 



If Joe had known that the flying-out was a 

 tumultuous ant-wedding, he would have been 

 more than ever interested in watching it. As 

 the case stood, he did not care for the fliers 

 half so much as for the little black ants — 

 ^sop's pismires. The pismires had a strong 

 nest somewhere in the chimney foundation. 

 Joe liked to put out a lump of sugar upon the 

 chimney shoulder twenty feet in air, and watch 

 what happened when a ranger-ant found it. 

 He was certain there were ranger-ants — in- 

 sects bolder, and of better brain than the rest. 

 He saw solitary fellows going everywhere, up, 

 down, across, around — to the chimney-top, 

 the garden fence, or all about the big oak trees 

 seeking honey-dew to devour. The most of 



