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Updated: June 4, 2025
At the very moment when the pursuit was hottest, and it seemed anybody's ant, I looked aside, and the little water-bugs passed from my sight forever for scattered over the surface were seven strange, mumbling mouths. Close as I was, their nature still eluded me.
We looked in vain for magic mirrors by the roadside, overhung with fairy grasses, littered with Autumn leaves, and skated over by nimble water-bugs. As our friend had said, the springs seemed to have dried up. Now and again we would hail with a great cry a friendly pump; once we came upon a cider-mill, but it was not working, and time and again we knocked and asked in vain for buttermilk.
Countless insects hovered over the polished surface of that water. Dragon-flies cruised about. Little birds swooped silently down and fluttered back, intent on their tiny prey. Water-bugs skated hither and thither in apparently purposeless diagonals. Once in a great while the black depths were stirred.
Swarms of water-bugs and beetles played over the edges of the steps, and crabs scuttled side-wise into deeper water at the approach of a gondola.
Gran'ma Mullins says when she sees a man like Hiram havin' to devote his strength an' his Sundays to catchin' water-bugs, she most feels she's been a mother in vain, an' Lucy says when she realizes as she's married a man as can't be put to no better use Sundays than catchin' water-bugs, she ain't got no doubt at all as to what she's married.
The little things, such as the skimmer, the small sieve, the egg-beater, and the spoons, were hung on nails driven into the edge of the shelf which was over the baking-table in the kitchen, where stood also the cups, bowls, and plates used in cooking, within easy reach. When they were done, the aunt said, "Always watch for ants in the pantry, and roaches and water-bugs in the sink.
Such are the water-bugs, water-scorpions and stick insects, which, though slender as rushes, and with limbs like hairs, can catch and kill the fry of the smaller fishes. Most of these are like divers, who have to provide themselves with air to breathe, and work at double speed in addition.
A lazy leaf or two drifted upon the surface of the water, and where gold sunlight fell through the thick leafage overhead and touched the water, brown water-bugs flitted and jerked. Once a great dragon-fly came through on some mysterious journey, and paused for a palpitating bright second on a sunny rock.
The young naturalist was more successful than in his gyrin-hunting, and succeeded in catching two or three of these water-bugs. "What is the use of their wings?" he inquired. "Why, to fly with, and to move from place to place." "Then water-bugs are really able to fly, swim, and walk?"
One smooth path led into the meadow, and here the little folk congregated; one swept across the pond, where skaters were darting about like water-bugs; and the third, from the very top of the steep hill, ended abruptly at a rail fence on the high bank above the road.
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