1869.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
303 
flCEM 9 
A Six=leg'g - etl Teacher. 
BY FRANCIS FORRESTER. 
“A six-legged teacher! Pshaw! Who ever heard 
of such a thing!” exclaims the young reader, wonder¬ 
ing whether the title to this article is a jest or a sober 
statement. Boys and girls should never cry “Pshaw!” 
at things they do not understand, lest older and wiser 
folks laugh at their ignorance. The earth is full of won¬ 
derful things, and those who walk through it with their 
eyes open may learn lessons from creatures with six 
legs, or four legs, or no legs, as well as from those having 
only two legs like themselves. My six-legged teacher is 
a big beetle. When you know more than you do now, you 
will find him to belong to a very respectable family of 
“big bugs,” or beetles, named Pcarabeus. At present, I 
will give him a less classic but more common name, and 
call him a Tumble-bug beetle! Don’t be ofi'ended with 
him because I give him such a plebeian name. Read on, 
and you will say he is a capital fellow in spite of his 
name. But just here it occurs to me that my six-legged 
teacher ought not to be called him at all, for she is a 
lady and not a gentleman beetle. No matter, nowever ; 
her lesson is just as valuable as though it had been 
taught by her husband. 
One day this lady beetle placed one of her eggs in a 
pellet of dung, so that she might bury it where it would 
be safe. To prevent the wet from making the pellet soft, 
the faithful mother pushed it up a little hillock, and then 
let it roll down. This she repeated several times, until, by 
some mistake, she let it roll into a hollow spot. Prom 
this she was unable to remove it, though she worked like 
a member of the Try Company in her endeavors to do it. 
THE TUMBLE-BUG, 
What then? Did she give it up? Not she. It takes poor, 
spiritless boys and girls to give up to difficulties. Insects 
have more pluck than such weak-willed little folks. So 
my beetle, finding her work beyond her own strength, 
started off at a round pace to a neighboring dung-heap in 
search of help. In a few moments she returned with 
three sister beetles. All four of them then gave a push, 
a strong push, and a push altogether. The pellet of 
dung could not resist their united strength. It went up 
in a moment or two, to the level ground. The three 
helpers went back to their home in the dung-heap, and 
Mrs. Tumble-bug soon rolled her pellet into a snug lit¬ 
tle nest in the ground, where her egg might safely hatch 
in due time. This curious fact was observed by a Ger¬ 
man artist in Italy. It may be found quoted by Ivirby 
and Spence in their chapter on the instincts of insects. 
“Hurrah for Mrs. Tumble-bug!” I hear you cry. 
That's right. She is worthy of three cheers. Let them 
ring out heartily. Then go and prove them to be true, 
honest, cheers, by sticking to your work as placidly as 
she stuck to hers. Whether your work be doing a hard 
sum, hoeing a hard row, weeding a hard spot of garden 
ground, or any other hard thing, keep trying to do it until 
it is done. That is the lesson of my six-legged teacher. 
How do you like it? 
There is another lesson taught by her three sisters. 
When she told them her trouble they did not jeer, or 
mock, or grumble, but they started at once to help her. 
I wonder if every reader of the Agriculturist can say, 
“ That’s the way I always do. I am never selfish enough 
to refuse aid to my brother or sister.” I wonder if it is 
so. I fear not, and therefore, I beg you to profit by the 
good example which these Tumble-bug beetles gave 
you when they so cheerfully helped one another. 
'A'Sic Mom of Site Mountain. 
Little Paul lived in a cottage crowded under the cliff, 
a queer old house, black and weather-beaten, with peak¬ 
ed, moss-grown roof, low, overhanging eaves, and narrow 
windows, close-latticed with little panes of glass. But 
once inside the creaking door with its rusty latch and 
huge hinges, you could n’t help feeling that it was a 
cosy home, for everything within wore an aspect of quiet 
comfort, from the old clock that ticked in the corner to 
the old cat that purred on the hearth. True, there were 
only three rooms in it, and none of them very big, and 
the ceilings were left unplastered and the beams bare, 
and the furniture was quite old-fashioned. Yet, some¬ 
how, there seemed around the straight-backed chairs and 
chintz curtains, and rag-carpeted floors,a snug appearance 
which pleased all who entered. As for little Paul, his 
private opinion was that no palace in all the land could 
be half as nice as his own home ; for where else could he 
rummage such crannies and corners, watch the swallows 
build nests under the eaves, play bo-peep in the attic, 
and above all, where could he have such a splendid view 
of the Old Man of the Mountain ? 
The Old Sian of the Slountain ? who was lie ? Not any¬ 
body who lived up there on the top of the storm-swept 
cliff, where there was snow eleven months in the year— 
not any live man at all; but a huge, strange likeness 
to a human side-face, which you could see jutting out 
from the side of the mountain, a mile up the ravine. 
It was a startling likeness, too. There was the fore¬ 
head, high and noble, and under it the depression for 
the eye ; there was a nose, straight and perfectly drawn, 
a pair of lips, thin, but distinct; a chin with its curved 
line turning down toward the throat,’ all forming so de¬ 
cided an outline of a man’s profile as to startle every 
one who glanced at it. It was a noble-looking face, as if 
drawn after the portrait of a good man. A calm, benig¬ 
nant aspect sat upon it, and it seemed to be gazing over 
the white houses of the village and the green fields of the 
valley, like a father bestowing a blessing on his children. 
The Old Man of the Mountain was not to be seen from 
every spot in the valley. Directly in front, you might 
look up the cliff and find no sign of a human face. But 
as you went down the ravine, following the crooked 
road, the likeness suddenly leaped out of the landscape. 
Justin front of little Paul’s house was the spot where it 
was most distinct, and people who had journeyed from 
afar to see the curious face, frequently asked the privi¬ 
lege—always willingly granted—of looking at it from the 
window up stairs, Paul’s little room. And all agreed 
that there, at that window, the Old Man appeared to the 
very best advantage ; nowhere else was the countenance 
quite so clear, and grand, and noble. 
Paul found unfailing pleasure, when every other enjoy¬ 
ment failed, in gazing at the Old Sian of the Slountain. 
His mother said that while an infant in her arms he 
noticed the likeness, and pointed to it and to his dead 
papa’s picture on the wall by turns, with his chubby 
little finger. He became more and more acquainted with 
it, and would sometimes sit quiet half au hour—a long 
time for a little child—gazing at it from his high chair by 
the window. As he grew from babydom into childhood 
he still loved to look on that magnificent profile, until it 
almost seemed as if there was a sympathy between them, 
and the stone face returned his earnest gaze, ne could 
scarcely tell when he thought it most interesting, whether 
in the early morning, when the gray mist rolled slowly 
up its face, and the first sunbeams played around its 
brow; or at sunset, all bathed in molten glory from the 
radiant clouds ; or when the moon cast across it melan¬ 
choly gleams. He loved it in all its moods of shadow 
and sunshine, of peace and storm. Others might think 
it always the same,—cold, stony, unchanging; but to 
Paul’s eye, at different times it wore a varied expres¬ 
sion, sometimes smiling, sometimes sad, at times look¬ 
ing down in peace, at times almost in anger. 
There would occasionally come to the village a visitor, 
who. people said, resembled the Old Man of the Mountain. 
But Paul never saw one that lie thought worthy of com¬ 
paring to that grand face. The nearest likeness, lie 
thought, was an old print of General Washington, which 
hung in his mother’s room; but even he, W’hom his 
mother reverenced above every man on the earth, and 
under whom his father had fought in the Revolution, Paul 
thought not so noble as the Old Man of the Mountain. 
Time sped away, and Paul, who had grown from child 
to boy, was now almost a man,—handsome, studious, and 
thoughtful still. One day a gentleman passing by was 
attracted by his bearing and good looks, talked with him 
an hour, and then took him away to a place at his store 
in the city. The t.ear3 that fell that day came not all 
from the widow, nor yet from the farmer’s pretty daugh¬ 
ter up the valley. As Paul rode away and the road turn¬ 
ed, shutting off the view of the cottage where an aged 
woman stood alone, and the cliff with its chiseled face, 
there stood a tear on the young man’s cheek. 
Two years have rolled on, and Paul returns to cheer his 
mother again a few weeks, and then to take away with 
him the maiden in the vale as his little wife, for he is now 
established in trade, known and honored as a rising 
young man. But as he enters the town, almost everybody 
says, “ How much our Paul looks like the Old Man of the 
Mountain !” Sure enough, there was the same high fore¬ 
head, the same grandly carven features, the same kind, 
generous, high-souled aspect. He had gazed on the 
mountain-face from infancy, and now the look of that 
face was stamped upon his own. And in after-years, as 
often as he returned to visit his early friends, the look 
deepened and grew to a still closer resemblance. 
That is the story. Will you stay to learn its lesson ? It 
is that those with whom we are in closest and most con¬ 
stant meeting will have an influence over us to imprint 
their likeness on our lives and characters. Live with 
the bad and there arc a hundred chances to one, that you 
will become like them; choose the good as your associates 
and you will be made better by them. Whether in life 
or in books, in examples or associations, then, wc should 
seek out the noble, the wise, the true. 
New IPaoKKles to E»e Amsweretl, 
Conundrum.—It you namo it you break it. What is it ? 
No. 353. Picture Conundrum.— How does this repre¬ 
sent girls in their first attempts at skating ? 
No. 354. Picture Conundrum .—Why are neither of 
these parents likely to want for beer? 
No. 355. Picture Puzzle— The wood demons—where 
are they? 
Answers to JPn-oMessis 
Jesse Edmonston (2), S. I. Dunn, F. W. Wilson (1), T. 
II. J. (1), Ellen S. Hart, Louis E. Shrivcr (2), Ginnic 
Richardson, J. Milton Ross (2), Fidelia R. Lord (2), Jen¬ 
nie A. II. (2), D. W. B. (1), W. H. 15. (3), Lidc W., Grace, 
II. and J. Bromley, II. A. Drury, Lizzie Wilbur, S. S. 
Nash, S. W. Baker (2), S. M. Peachey (2), Chas. C. Ilatch- 
ard, C. A. Dirr, J. Milton Snyder, D. Webb, Jr., George 
II. Taylor, J. G. L., Allie Shuler, Jacob White. 
