and bothered ma so she had to keep
all the sweet things on a table with its legs in basins of water. They
couldn't get over that, you see."

"Why not?" Mollie asked. "Can't they swim?"

"Ours couldn't; lots of them fell in the water and were drowned."

"Ants are usually quite helpless in the water," Miss Ruth said, "though
a French writer who has made the little folks a study, tells a story of
six soldier ants who rescued their companions from drowning. He put his
sugar-basin in a vessel of water, and several adventurous ants climbed
to the ceiling and dropped into it. Four missed their aim and fell
outside the bowl in the water. Their companions tried in vain to rescue
them, then went away and presently returned accompanied by six
grenadiers, stout fellows, who immediately swam to their relief, seized
them with their pincers and brought them to land. Three were apparently
dead, but the faithful fellows licked and rubbed them quite dry, rolling
them over and over, stretching themselves on them, and in a truly
skillful and scientific manner sought to bring back life to their
benumbed bodies. Under this treatment three came to life, while one only
partly restored was carefully borne away. 'I have seen it' is Du Pont de
Nervours's comment on what he thinks may be considered a marvelous
story, though it seems no more wonderful to me than many well-attested
facts in the lives of the little people."

"It's all wonderful," Susie said. "It seems as though they must think
and reason and plan just as we do. Don't you think so, Auntie?"

"Indeed I do, Susie. One who has long studied their ways ranks them next
to man in the scale of intelligence, and says the brain of an ant--no
larger perhaps than a fine grain of sand--must be the most wonderful
particle of matter in the world."

"But they can't talk, Auntie?"

"I am not so sure of that. Their voices may be too fine and high-pitched
for our great ears to hear. I fancy there is a deal of conversation
carried on in the grass and the bushes and the trees, that we know
nothing about."

"How funny! What did you mean, Auntie, when you said the queen laid off
all her flounces and furbelows."

"I was rather fancifully describing her wings, dear, which she takes off
herself when she enters the nest, having no further use for them. There
are three kinds of ants in every nest: perfect males and females, and
the workers. There are many different races of ants, from the great
white