Little Busybodies Part 10

A NAGGING FAMILY

"Do you know of a family around here whom no one likes?" asked Ben Gile.

The lanterns were burning brightly out on the lawn of Turtle Lodge, and Mrs. Reece had just stopped playing so that the children might rest from dancing. All the lanterns moved gently to and fro on the piazza; the children were running about, and everybody seemed to be having a beautiful and breathless time. "Do you know of a family around here,"

called the guide, "whom n.o.body likes?"

"I do," replied Mrs. Reece, laughing and slapping the side of her face.

"They are just like some people, nagging, annoying, and numerous."

"Do any children here," called Ben Gile, for the third time, "know of a family n.o.body likes? For the child who guesses I have a pocket-knife."

"The Smiths!" shouted Peter. "My father says Mrs. Smith is always quarrelling with the choir."

"Hush!" said Mrs. Reece, seeing danger ahead. "Ben means a family right here on the piazza."

The children looked at one another, and then Jack turned shrewdly to the guide. "I guess, sir, it is mosquitoes and flies."

"Good boy, and here's the knife."

Jack thought he had never seen such a wonderful knife. It had three blades, a corkscrew, a file, and a pair of scissors, and to this day Jack has that knife.

"Come," said Mrs. Reece, "let us all sit down for a few minutes while Lizzie is getting supper ready inside."

"How many wings," asked Mrs. Reece, "has a fly?"

"Four," answered Jimmie.

"No," corrected the guide; "a real fly has only two wings. In the place of the second pair they have queer little k.n.o.bbed rods which are called balancers--something like the out-riggers on your scull, Jim. These steer and steady the fly's body."

"What makes a fly bite?" asked Hope.

"They do not bite, child. A beetle or a gra.s.shopper can really bite, because beetles and gra.s.shoppers have heavy, h.o.r.n.y jaws, toothed on the edge, with which to do it. But a fly has fine, sharp-pointed jaws. With these needlelike jaws they pierce a hole in the skin, then with a tiny sucking-beak, made by the rolled lower lip, they draw up the blood through this opening."

"I wonder whether any little girl here knows why flies should not be allowed in the house?" asked Mrs. Reece. No little girl did know anything except that their mothers were always driving flies out, and that these creatures buzzed and were a nuisance. "Do tell them," said Mrs. Reece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A._ House-fly.

_B._ A grown-up mosquito, two larvae, and a pupa.]

"Well," said the guide, "the fly is such a little acrobat it can crawl up the steepest and most slippery wall and walk upside down or right side up with the greatest ease. Perhaps some day you can make a fly keep still long enough so that you can look at its foot. At the end of the foot are two little round pads thickly covered with downy hair. On each side are two sharp claws and many stiff, clinging hairs. With this flattened foot it can go wherever it wishes.

"But this same little foot is the chief reason why a fly should never be allowed in the house, for flies crawl into all sorts of dirty places, and the fine hairs catch and hold the dirt. When the fly lights on us or on the table, some of the pieces of dirt are shaken off."

"But they are so hard to catch," said Betty; "it takes Lizzie forever and forever to get them out of the dining-room in the morning."

"I know why they are hard to catch," added Jack, "for I've looked at a dead fly. They have such big eyes, like lighthouses, they can see all around."

"Yes," said Ben Gile; "there is no such thing as creeping up on a fly unawares. Flies are dirty creatures," continued the old man, "and the time is not very far distant when people will make war on them just as they do on mosquitoes. Mrs. Fly lays her eggs in unclean places, and as many as a hundred eggs at a time. These eggs hatch out quickly. It takes only twenty-one days to make a chicken out of an egg, but to make a baby fly it takes only a few hours, and ugly babies they are--little white maggots, or worms, that live and feed and grow rapidly in dirty places.

Within six days the maggot becomes a tiny, dark-brown pupa, and after five days the pupa hatches out into a grown-up fly."

A dozen little girls at the party made up their minds promptly that after this evening they, at least, would make war on flies.

"And aren't flies of any use?" asked Betty.

"There is one little fly, Mrs. Tachina-Fly, who is of some use. She is a cousin of the house-fly. She is of use because she chooses a queer place to lay her eggs--on the back of a young caterpillar. After these caterpillars grow and shut themselves up into a coc.o.o.n to change into a b.u.t.terfly the little fly eggs hatch out into maggots. Of course they are hungry--all babies are; and finding the nice, fat caterpillar in the round house, like dutiful babies they eat what is set before them until the fat, tender caterpillar is eaten up. After they are satisfied they lie still in their brown skins and change into grown-up tachina-flies, and at last out come a lot of busy, _buzzing_, bothersome flies. It is rather hard on the caterpillar. But when we think what harmful, greedy things most caterpillars are, perhaps it is good that there are tachina-flies to eat them. Is it time for supper yet?"

"No, not yet," replied Mrs. Reece. "Do tell the children something about mosquitoes."

"If I had to choose between Mr. and Mrs. Mosquito, I should take Mr.

Mosquito, for he neither bites nor buzzes, but attends strictly to his own business. Perhaps he thinks Mrs. Mosquito's voice pretty. Perhaps he likes to hear about her adventures. But most people do not, for they think Mrs. Mosquito a busybody, always going where she is not wished, always breaking up conversations, and always coming back after she has been plainly told that she is not wanted. Yet her singing is music in the ears of her husband. Perhaps if we had long, slender antennae, all covered with hairs, like his, we, too, might like her song. When she sings these hairs begin to tremble, to vibrate, and a little nerve in the antennae changes this trembling to sound.

"In every way Mr. Mosquito seems a more pleasant body. He eats very little, and contents himself with nectar. But she, knowing that excitement makes the blood flow faster, and being a hearty eater, begins her song gently at first, then louder and louder, nearer and nearer.

Finally, with her long, slender, sharp stylets, she makes a hole in your cheek or your arm, pushes in her sucking-beak, and pumps up the blood.

And there she sucks and sucks until her stomach is full or she is brushed off or killed."

"Where do mosquitoes lay eggs?" asked Jack, who was certain that everything in the insect world did lay eggs, as indeed everything does.

"In the water; any puddle will do. When the eggs hatch out they are funny-looking fellows, long, tapering bodies with a big head end. At the other end are two little p.r.o.ngs. This baby, like some other babies, is never quiet, but squirms and wriggles so that it is called a wriggler.

Upon its thick head are two little tufts of hair. These it waves every moment, so that all the food which comes its way will go into its hungry little mouth. One of the p.r.o.ngs at the other end of the body is an air-tube, so that the baby mosquito has to stand on its head to breathe.

It hangs head downward, and holds its air-tube above the surface of the water.

"When people pour kerosene upon the water the wriggler cannot get any air to breathe, and therefore dies. Within a few days the wriggler changes its skin three times; after the third change it looks very different, and is called a pupa. Now, instead of having an air-tube at the end, it has two on the back of the thorax. At the tail end are two flaps to help it swim. Even the pupa is never still a minute, but holds its air-tubes above the water's surface.

"When anything comes to disturb it, it uses its flaps and swims safely to the bottom of the pool. At the end of two days out of the pupa skin comes a grown-up mosquito. If it is a Mrs. Mosquito, she promptly begins to bite people and to carry about fevers or malaria from person to person. The bite of a mosquito may sometimes be as dangerous as the bite of a rattlesnake."

The children had been slapping the mosquitoes buzzing about on the _piazza_. "And now," said the guide, "before we go into supper, I will tell you a real and a true story. Mosquitoes sometimes carry sickness from one person to another until it spreads throughout a large city. We didn't realize how dangerous mosquitoes were till a short time ago.

People had malaria, and were very ill with it. In some countries many died. Every one thought, however, that the malaria came in some mysterious way from the mists of the low-lying swamps and marshes. But one day some one happened to think it might not be in the marshes, after all; rather that it might be a certain little two-winged insect with a short, piercing instrument, which spent its babyhood days in these same marshes.

"And so two English doctors determined to find out the truth of the matter. In the faraway land of Italy was a place where thousands of people were suffering from this disease. There these doctors went and built a comfortable little house in the very worst place they could find. They were careful to screen every door and window, and to leave not a crack for a mosquito to crawl in.

"There they lived, always going into the house at sundown, shutting all the screen doors, but allowing the damp night air to pour in. It was this night air which every one supposed gave people malaria. But the two physicians in the snug little house, free from mosquitoes, kept well, strong, and happy, although the people outside in the other houses were very ill and suffering with chills and fever.

"You see, these little Anopheles, for that is their name, bite some one ill with malaria. Perhaps the next person they stab with their sharp needle is well. In this way they leave some of the poisoned blood in the wound. There is another illness which is a hundred times worse than malaria. This is called yellow fever. In some countries thousands of people died from this every year, and doctors did not know just how it was carried from place to place.

"Our Government appointed a commission to study the matter. Dr. Walter Reed, a surgeon of the United States Army, with three a.s.sistants, went to Havana and built a house, carefully screened, just like that of the English physicians in Italy. People thought that the fever was carried in the clothes and on the sheets of those who were ill. To prove that this was not so, these men wore the clothes of sick people, and even slept on the sheets taken from the sickbed. They did this disagreeable thing for twenty days, keeping the little house very warm, and shutting out the fresh air and sunshine. But in spite of all these things the men continued well and strong.

"They wanted to prove even more surely that it was a certain kind of mosquito which really did the harm. So they built another house.

Everything in this house was pure and clean. The rooms were flooded with fresh air and sunshine. Half of the house was carefully screened and shut off from the other half. The men in the half that was screened kept perfectly well. Those in the other half let themselves be bitten by mosquitoes which had been in the houses where there was yellow fever.

All became dangerously ill with the fever. Two of these brave physicians died of the fever while trying to find the cause, in order that they might save the lives of thousands of people."

"That is modern heroism," said Mrs. Reece, "and service of the highest sort. All humanity is indebted to those brave men. There is no doubt but that our Panama Ca.n.a.l could not be in progress to-day were it not for the extermination of the mosquito in the ca.n.a.l zone. Since we can never tell where a mosquito has been, or what kind of a mosquito it is, I suppose it is best to keep mosquitoes from biting, and always to keep them out of the house. And now, children, supper is ready, and after that games. Let us go to the dining-room!"

XI

CAMPING OUT