Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson

  THE DRAGON-FLY CHILDREN AND THE SNAPPING TURTLE

  The Dragon-Flies have always lived near the pond. Not the same ones thatare there now, of course, but the great-great-great-grandfathers ofthese. A person would think that, after a family had lived so long in aplace, all the neighbors would be fond of them, yet it is not so. TheDragon-Flies may be very good people--and even the Snapping Turtle saysthat they are--still, they are so peculiar that many of their neighborsdo not like them at all. Even when they are only larvae, or babies, theyare not good playmates, for they have such a bad habit of puttingeverything into their mouths. Indeed, the Stickleback Father once toldthe little Sticklebacks that they should not stir out of the nest,unless they would promise to keep away from the young Dragon-Flies.

  The Stickleback Mothers said that it was all the fault of the Dragon-FlyMothers. "What can you expect," exclaimed one of them, "when Dragon-Flyeggs are so carelessly laid? I saw a Dragon-Fly Mother laying some onlyyesterday, and how do you suppose she did it? Just flew around in thesunshine and visited with her friends, and once in a while flew lowenough to touch the water and drop one in. It is disgraceful!"

  The Minnow Mothers did not think it was so much in the way the eggs werelaid, "although," said one, "I always lay mine close together, insteadof scattering them over the whole pond." They thought the trouble camefrom bad bringing up or no bringing up at all. Each egg, you know, whenit is laid, drops to the bottom of the pond, and the children arehatched and grow up there, and do not even see their fathers andmothers.

  Now most of the larvae were turning into Nymphs, which are half-grownDragon Flies. They had been short and plump, and now they were longerand more slender, and there were little bunches on their shoulders wherethe wings were growing under their skin. They had outgrown their oldskins a great many times, and had to wriggle out of them to be at allcomfortable. When a Dragon-Fly child became too big for his skin, hehooked the two sharp claws of each of his six feet firmly intosomething, unfastened his skin down the back, and wriggled out, leavingit to roll around in the water until it became just part of the mud.

  Like most growing children, the Dragon-Fly larvae and Nymphs had to eat agreat deal. Their stomachs were as long as their bodies, and they werenever really happy unless their stomachs were full. They always ateplain food and plenty of it, and they never ate between meals. They hadbreakfast from the time they awakened in the morning until the sun washigh in the sky, then they had dinner until the sun was low in the sky,and supper from that time until it grew dark and they went to sleep: butnever a mouthful between meals, no matter how hungry they might be. Theysaid this was their only rule about eating, and they _would_ keep it.

  They were always slow children. You would think that, with six legsapiece and three joints in each leg, they might walk quite fast, yetthey never did. When they had to, they hurried in another way by takinga long leap through the water. Of course they breathed water like theirneighbors, the fishes and the Tadpoles. They did not breathe it intotheir mouths, or through gills, but took it in through some openings inthe back part of their bodies. When they wanted to hurry, they breathedthis water out so suddenly that it sent them quickly ahead.

  The Snapping Turtle had called them "bothering bugs" one day when he wascross (and that was the day after he had been cross, and just before theday when he was going to be cross again), and they didn't like him andwanted to get even. They all put their queer little three-cornered headstogether, and there was an ugly look in their great staring eyes.

  "Horrid old thing!" said one larva. "I wish I could sting him."

  "Well, you can't," said a Nymph, turning towards him so suddenly that heleaped. "You haven't any sting, and you never will have, so you justkeep still." It was not at all nice in her to speak that way, but shewas not well brought up, you know, and that, perhaps, is a reason whyone should excuse her for talking so to her little brother. She wasoften impatient, and said she could never go anywhere without one of thelarvae tagging along.

  "I tell you what let's do," said another Nymph. "Let's all go togetherto the shallow water where he suns himself, and let's all stand close toeach other, and then, when he comes along, let's stick out our lips athim!"

  "Both lips?" asked the larvae.

  "Well, our lower lips anyway," answered the Nymph. "Our upper lips areso small they don't matter."

  "We'll do it," exclaimed all the Dragon-Fly children, and they startedtogether to walk on the pond-bottom to the shallow water. They thoughtit would scare the Snapping Turtle dreadfully. They knew that wheneverthey stuck out their lower lips at the small fishes and bugs, they swamaway as fast as they could. The Giant Water-Bug (Belostoma), was theonly bug who was not afraid of them when they made faces. Indeed, thelower lip of a Dragon-Fly child might well frighten people, for it isfastened on a long, jointed, arm-like thing, and has pincers on it withwhich it catches and holds its food. Most of the time, the Dragon-Flychild keeps the joint bent, and so holds his lip up to his face like amask. But sometimes he straightens the joint and holds his lip outbefore him, and then its pincers catch hold of things. He does this whenhe is hungry.

  When they reached the shallow water, the Dragon-Fly children stood closetogether, with the larvae in the middle and the Nymphs all around them.The Snapping Turtle was nowhere to be seen, so they had to wait. "Aren'tyou scared?" whispered one larva to another.

  "Scared? Dah! Who's afraid," answered he.

  "Oh, look!" cried a Nymph. "There go some grown-up Dragon-Flies over ourheads. Just you wait until I change my skin once more, and then won't Ihave a good time! I'll dry my wings and then I'll----"

  "Sh-h!" said one of the larvae. "Here comes the Snapping Turtle."

  Sure enough, there he came through the shallow water, his wet back-shellpartly out of it and shining in the sunlight. He came straight towardthe Dragon-Fly children, and they were glad to see that he did not lookhungry. They thought he might be going to take a nap after his dinner.Then they all stood even closer together and stuck out their lower lipsat him. They thought he might run away when they did this. They feltsure that he would at least be very badly frightened.

  The Snapping Turtle did not seem to see them at all. It was queer. Hejust waddled on and on, coming straight toward them. "Ah-h-h!" said he."How sleepy I do feel! I will lie down in the sunshine and rest." Hetook a few more steps, which brought his great body right over the crowdof Dragon-Fly children. "I think I will draw in my head," said he (theDragon-Fly children looked at each other), "and my tail (here two of theyoungest larvae began to cry) and lie down." He began to draw in his legsvery, very slowly, and just as his great hard lower shell touched themud, the last larva crawled out under his tail. The Nymphs had alreadygotten away.

  "Oh," said the Dragon-Fly children to each other, "Wasn't it awful!"

  "Humph," said the Snapping Turtle, talking to himself--he had gotteninto the way of doing that because he had so few friends--"Howdreadfully they did scare me!" Then he laughed a grim Snapping Turtlelaugh, and went to sleep.