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Herbert talked at considerable length about lightning-bugs, but as his voice happened rather precociously to be already in a state of adolescent change, the sound was not soothing; yet Noble lingered. Nephews were queer, but this one was Julia's, and he finally mentioned her again, as incidental to lightning-bugs; whereupon the mere hearer of sounds became instantly a listener to words.
A deep pink spot burned on either cheek, her eyes were very bright, and she kept her face turned resolutely away from little Mr. Crabtree, over whose face there had flashed a ray of most beautiful and abashed delight. "Me and Mr. Crabtree were a-talking it all over last night while Bob and Louisa Helen were down at the gate counting lightning-bugs, they said.
A number of small shining objects began to dance and scintillate in the darkness beyond. At first I took them for "lightning-bugs," but although these were plenty enough without, it was not usual to find them inside an enclosed apartment. Moreover, those I saw were low down upon the floor of the saloon, and not suspended in the air, as they should have been.
Wild creatures that had been sleeping during the day came from their holes to seek food and timidly watched her hasten past. And all along, out of the tall, brittle grass, the busy lightning-bugs sprang up with their lanterns to help the dim stars light the way.
Like so many big lightning-bugs they seemed, with their dim white lamps rattling around in the storm. It was nearly all night then. God and his sunlight seemed to have forsaken Alaska.
And he says "liquid rivers of molten granite." I would like to have a farm on that stream. He guesses everything of the kind except lightning-bugs and foxfire. Now, think of that explanation in the last half of the nineteenth century by a minister.
"Do you say I can't fix it?" he finally demanded. "Maybe you think scouts can't fix things. They know first aid, scouts do. I can fix that little feller; maybe you think I can't. You come with me, I'll show you. Scouts scouts can do things they're better than snails and lightning-bugs. I'll show you what they can do; you come with me." "Ain't you going to wait for the mailman?" "No, I'm not.
"How can you get well quick when snails are slow?" Pee-wee asked. "That shows that Licorice Stick is crazy. It would be better to make it with lightning-bugs." "Lightning-bugs mean there are ghosts around," said Pepsy, "the lightning-bugs are their eyes. But anyway, just the same, nobody can fix Whitie Bungel, because the doctor from Baxter said so, and he knows because he's got an automobile."
Do you remember, dear mammy, when I was a child, how tired I would get, chasing butterflies while the day lasted, and when night came, how I used to spring, and try to catch the lightning-bugs that were flying around me and you used to beg me to come in and rest or go to bed, but I would not until I could no longer stand; then I laid myself on your breast and forgot all my weariness?
You will learn that in South America the lightning-bugs and glowworms of many kinds are the same as in North America; that the beetle, or elator, when placed upon its back, snaps itself up in the air and falls upon its feet, as our species does; that the obscene fungus, or Phallus, taints the tropical forests, as a similar species at times taints our dooryards and pasture-borders; and that the mud-dauber wasps stuff their clay cells with half-dead spiders for their young, just as in North America.
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