mother, but in this hill there is just 
one. 
The Queen is standing in the middle 
of the chamber. She is much larger 
than the worker ants about her. They 
are cleaning her, feeding her, combing 
her, attending to all her wants. 
But at the same time they are really 
keeping her prisoner. For the Queen is 
never permitted to leave the ant hill. 
She never sees the sun or the sky. She 
always lives underground. Her only 
task in life is to lay eggs so that the ant 
colony will not die. She may live many 
years, but she will never do any other 
work. 
Years ago, maybe five or six years ago, 
she was a princess in some other ant hill. 
She and the other princesses were differ¬ 
ent from the young worker ants. Some¬ 
day they would be queens. That was 
why they were fed better food than the 
workers. That was why they had no 
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