Among the Night People | Page 4

if
she were to try it now?"
The Chickens looked at each other and laughed. They thought it would
take three Speckled Hens to cover them.
"But she used to," said the Black Spanish Hen. She did not say
anything more. She just looked at the potato-crate and at them and at
the potato-crate again. Then she walked off.
After a while one of the Chickens said: "I guess perhaps there isn't
room for us all there."
The mischievous one said: "If you little Chickens want to roost there
you may. I am too large for that sort of thing." Then he walked up the
slanting board to the apple-tree branch and perched there beside the
young Shanghais. You should have seen how beautifully he did it. His
toes hooked themselves around the branch as though he had always
perched there, and he tucked his head under his wing with quite an air.
Before long his brothers and sisters came also, and heard him saying to
one of his new neighbors, "Oh, yes, I much prefer apple-trees, but when
I was a Chicken I used to sleep on a potato-crate."
"Just listen to him!" whispered the Black Spanish Cock. "And he hasn't

a tail-feather worth mentioning!"
"Never mind," answered the Black Spanish Hen. "Let them play that
they are grown up if they want to. They will be soon enough." She
sighed as she put her head under her wing and settled down for the
night. It made her feel old to see her children roosting in a tree.
Ê
THE WIGGLERS BECOME MOSQUITOES
IT was a bright moonlight night when the oldest Wigglers in the
rain-barrel made up their mind to leave the water. They had always
been restless and discontented children, but it was not altogether their
fault. How could one expect any insect with such a name to float
quietly? When the Mosquito Mothers laid their long and slender eggs
in the rain-barrel, they had fastened them together in boat-shaped
masses, and there they had floated until the Wigglers were strong
enough to break through the lower ends of the eggs into the water. It
had been only a few days before they were ready to do this.
Then there had been a few more days and nights when the tiny
Wigglers hung head downward in the water, and all one could see by
looking across the barrel was the tips of their breathing tubes.
Sometimes, if they were frightened, a young Wiggler would forget and
get head uppermost for a minute, but he was always ashamed to have
this happen, and made all sorts of excuses for himself when it did.
Well-bred little Wigglers tried to always have their heads down, and
Mosquitoes who stopped to visit with them and give good advice told
them such things as these: "The Wiggler who keeps his head up may
never have wings," and, "Up with your tails and down with your eyes,
if you would be mannerly, healthy, and wise."
When they were very young they kept their heads way down and
breathed through a tube that ran out near the tail-end of their bodies.
This tube had a cluster of tiny wing-like things on the very tip, which
kept it floating on the top of the water. They had no work to do, so they
just ate food which they found in the water, and wiggled, and played

tag, and whenever they were at all frightened they dived to the bottom
and stayed there until they were out of breath. That was never very
long.
There were many things to frighten them. Sometimes a stray Horse
stopped by the barrel to drink, sometimes a Robin perched on the edge
for a few mouthfuls of water, and once in a while a Dragon-Fly came
over to visit from the neighboring pond. It was not always the biggest
visitor who scared them the worst. The Horses tried not to touch the
Wigglers, while a Robin was only too glad if he happened to get one
into his bill with the water. The Dragon-Flies were the worst, for they
were the hungriest, and they were so much smaller that sometimes the
Wigglers didn't see them coming. Sometimes, too, when they thought
that a Dragon-Fly was going the other way, some of them stayed near
the top of the water, only to find when it was too late that a Dragon-Fly
can go backwards or sidewise without turning around.
When they were a few days old the Wigglers began to change their
skins. This they did by wiggling out of their old ones and wearing the
new ones which had been growing underneath. This made them feel
exceedingly important, and some of them became disgracefully vain.
One Wiggler would not dive until he