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A little ball of green inch-worm dropped off the bush on to Toadie Todson's back and began to measure its length over Toadie's big warts and veins. It made him feel very important to have an inch-worm all to himself to tickle his back, as important as an Egyptian Queen with a slave to tickle the sole of her foot all the hot afternoon long.
Toadie Todson swelled with pride as the green inch-worm went measuring up and down, up and down his back. The Busy Bee just then flew buzzing by and buzzed to Toadie as he went: "There's a sand-slide rolling down this way. I'm getting out's fast as I can." When the Bee said sand-slide it sounded just like "Sz-sz-sz z-z-z-z ide."
She told all the little Cricketses that you couldn't expect to speak sullenly to people and have them like you, and that you couldn't expect to live away from the society of other people without having something killed in you. Mrs. Greenie, Toadie Todson's Green Inch-Worm, was measuring his way carefully around a birch tree.
A root that looks no bigger that an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight when you find it under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty of evergreens near at hand for the beds. Spruce will answer at a pinch; it has an aromatic smell; but it is too stiff and humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more flexible; but the spring soon wears out of it.
A small note below informed the public that 4 A.M. was the time. Hardly had the audience grasped this important fact when a long waterproof serpent was seen uncoiling itself from behind a stump. An inch-worm, perhaps, would be a better description, for it travelled in the same humpy way as that pleasing reptile.
I am told he burned very actively, and I believe it, for to my certain knowledge he was very dry, and not so green as some persons who had previously employed him affected to think. A cold chill came over me as my eye rested upon the horrid visitor and noted the greenish depths of his eyes and the claw-like formation of his fingers, and my flesh began to creep like an inch-worm.
A State law was passed inflicting a penalty of one dollar nearly five shillings or a week's imprisonment, on any person who killed one; and most happy was the result. The inch-worm was destroyed, the trees became healthy and green, and now the spirited little English birds hop and chirp in every garden and park in the Union!
It was forbidden to any insect to remain on a high stalk of grass, lest he might look down on His Highness. Even the Inch-worm had to wind himself up and stop measuring his length, while the line was passing. And in case of grubs or moths in the nest or cocoon, too young to crawl out, the law compelled their parents to cover them over with a leaf.
"I been so exhausted working, I was like an inch-worm crawling along a roof. I worked till I thought another lick would kill me. If you had something to do, you did it or got whipped. Once I was so tired I couldn't work any more. I crawled in a hole under the house and stayed there till I was rested. I didn't get whipped, either.
No, he would stay right there, it was too much trouble to move for anybody. The green inch-worm was very green, and went on measuring Toadie Todson's back, for it didn't understand a word the Bee and Ant had said, Suddenly, gravel, gravel, gravel, slip, slip, slip and Toadie Todson was under mountains of sand with a great big rock square on his back.
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