The Pond Part 6

"Oh, well," said the bladder-wort, "there wasn't much on it. For that matter, I've finished, in case you care to see what's left of it."

Just then the flap was opened, and a tiny little hard stump was flung out into the water.

"Is that my leg?" asked the spider.

"Don't you recognise it?"

The bladder-wort laughed contentedly. The spider stood and looked at the stump for a little while. Then she said good-night and limped sadly into her parlour.

"Good-night," said the bladder-wort, pleasantly. "And good luck to your hunting in the morning."

"I shall never survive this," said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

But, at that moment, she felt something alive under her:

"The children!" she screamed.

She was up on the edge of the nest in a second. On the opposite side sat her husband, watching just as eagerly as she.

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One egg was quite in two and one of the others was burst. A wee, blind, naked youngster lay in the nest; and from the other egg protruded the dearest little leg of a chick.

"Did you ever see anything like it?" cried she. "Isn't it charming?"

"Delightful!" said he.

Then they began carefully to peck at the other eggs. And, inside, the young chicks pecked with their little beaks and five minutes later, they were all five out.

"Help me to clear up," she said.

Out flew the sh.e.l.ls, on every side, down into the water.

"G.o.d bless you, kind lady!" cried Goody Cray-Fish from down below.

She was out for an evening stroll. But no one heard her. The reed-warblers were mad with delight over their children and had no thought for anything else in the world.

"What are you thinking of?" said the husband. "They'll perish with cold.

Sit on them at once!"

And she sat on them and covered them up and peeped at them every moment.

But he stayed up half the night, singing, on the top of the reed.

CHAPTER VI

Summer

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The whole pond was alive.

There were not only great, horrid pikes and great mannerly carp and roach and perch and sticklebacks and eels. There were cray-fish and frogs and newts, pond-snails and fresh-water mussels, water-beetles and daddy-long-legs, whirligigs and ever so many others.

There was the duck, who quacked at her ducklings, and the swan, who glided over the water with bent neck and rustling wings, stately and elegant. There was the dragon-fly, who buzzed through the air, and there were the dragon-fly's young, who crawled upon the water-plants and ate till they burst. But that did not matter; they just had to burst, if they were to come to anything.

There was the bladder-wort, who had his innocent white flowers above the water and his death-traps down at the bottom; the spider, who was still his lodger and now had the whole ceiling full of eggs, and hundreds of thousands of midge-grubs, who lay on the surface of the water and stuck up their air-vessels and hurried down to the bottom the moment a shadow fell over the pond. There were hundreds of thousands of midges, who danced in the air, and there was the water-lily, who knew how beautiful she was, and who was unapproachable for self-conceit.

There were many more, whom you could not count without getting dizzy.

And then there were the tadpoles, who were ever so many and ever so merry. And you only had to take a drop of water and examine it through a magnifying-gla.s.s to see how it swarmed with tiny little animals, who all danced about and ate one another without the least compunction.

But just under the reed-warblers' nest there was a little May-fly grub, who was in a terrible state of fright.

She had entered into conversation with little Mrs. Reed-Warbler one day, when the latter had gone all the way down the reed to find food for her five youngsters, who were simply insatiable and kept on crying for more.

Just at that moment, the May-fly grub had come up to the surface; and now the bird's beak was exactly over her.

"Let me live," said she.

"That's what they all say," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "My children have to live, too!"

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So saying she tried to s.n.a.t.c.h her. But the grub wriggled so and looked so queer that she could not.

"Listen to me for a moment," said the grub; "then I'm sure that you won't hurt me. I am so small and so thin and fill so little s.p.a.ce in a stomach."

"Well, what is it?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"I have lived here a long time," said the grub. "I have heard you talk to your husband and to the cray-fish and the eel and the spider. It was all so beautiful, what you said. I am certain that you have a good heart."

"I don't know about my heart," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "But I know I have five hungry children."

"I am a child myself," said the grub. "And I should so awfully like to live till I grow up."

"Do you think that life is so pleasant?"

"I don't know. I am only a child, you see. I crawl about down here and wait. When I am grown up, I shall have wings and be able to fly like you."

"You don't surely imagine that you're a bird?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Oh, no! I certainly don't aim so high as that. I shall just become a May-fly."

"I know them," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I have eaten lots of them. They taste very good."

"Oh, well, in that case, do wait for me to grow up, before you eat me. I shall only live for a few hours, you know, when I get my wings. I shall just have time to fly once round the pond and lay my eggs in the water.