As soon as I could recover breath, I informed him confidentially, that, if the world were one great squash, I wouldn't undertake to save it in that way. He smiled a little, but I think he was not overmuch pleased. I asked him why I couldn't take a bucket of water and dip the shingle in it and drown them. He said, well, I could try it. I did try it,—first wrapping my hand in a cloth to prevent contact with any stray bug. To my amazement, the moment they touched the water they all spread unseen wings and flew away, safe and sound. I should not have been much more surprised to see Halicarnassus soaring over the ridge-pole. I had not the slightest idea that they could fly. Of course I gave up the design of drowning them. I called a council of war. One said I must put a newspaper over them and fasten it down at the edges; then they couldn't get in. I timidly suggested that the squashes couldn't get out. Yes, they could, he said,—they'd grow right through the paper. Another said I must surround them with round boxes with the bottoms broken out; for, though they could fly, they couldn't steer, and when they flew up, they just dropped down anywhere, and as there was on the whole a good deal more land on the outside of the boxes than on the inside, the chances were in favor of their dropping on the outside. Another said that ashes must be sprinkled on them. A fourth said lime was an infallible remedy. I began with the paper, which I secured with no little difficulty; for the wind—the same wind, strange to say—kept blowing the dirt at me and the paper away from me; but I consoled myself by remembering the numberless rows of squash-pies that should crown my labors, and May took heart from Thanksgiving. The next day I peeped under the paper and the bugs were a solid phalanx. I reported at head-quarters, and they asked me if I killed the bugs before I put the paper down. I said no, I supposed it would stifle them,—in fact, I didn't think anything about it, but if I thought anything, that was what I thought. I wasn't pleased to find I had been cultivating the bugs and furnishing them with free lodgings. I went home and tried all the remedies in succession. I could hardly decide which agreed best with the structure and habits of the bugs, but they throve on all. Then I tried them all at once and all o'er with a mighty uproar. Presently the bugs went away. I am not sure that they wouldn't have gone just as soon, if I had let them alone. After they were gone, the vines scrambled out and put forth some beautiful, deep golden blossoms. When they fell off, that was the end of them. Not a squash,—not one,—not a single squash,—not even a pumpkin. They were all false blossoms.
APPLES.—The trees swelled into masses of pink and white fragrance. Nothing could exceed their fluttering loveliness or their luxuriant promise. A few days of fairy beauty, and showers of soft petals floated noiselessly down, covering the earth with delicate snow; but I knew, that, though the first blush of beauty was gone, a mighty work was going on in a million little laboratories, and that the real glory was yet to come. I was surprised to observe, one day, that the trees seemed to be turning red. I remarked to Halicarnassus that that was one of Nature's processes which I did not remember to have seen noticed in any botanical treatise. I thought such a change did not occur till autumn. Halicarnassus curved the thumb and forefinger of his right hand into an arch, the ends of which rested on the wrist of his left coat-sleeve. He then lifted the forefinger high and brought it forward. Then he lifted the thumb and brought it up behind the forefinger, and so made them travel up to his elbow. It seemed to require considerable exertion in the thumb and forefinger, and I watched the progress with interest. Then I asked him what he meant by it.
"That's the way they walk," he replied.
"Who walk?"
"The little fellows that have squatted on our trees."
"What little fellows do you mean?"
"The canker-worms."
"How many are there?"
"About twenty-five decillions, I should think, as near as I can count."
"Why! what are they for? What good do they do?"
"Oh! no end. Keep the children from eating green apples and getting sick."
"How do they do that?"
"Eat 'em themselves."
A frightful idea dawned upon me. I believe I turned a kind of ghastly blue.
"Halicarnassus, do you mean to tell me that the canker-worms are eating up our apples and that we shan't have any?"
"It looks like that exceedingly."
That was months ago, and it looks a great deal more like it now. I watched those trees with sadness at my heart. Millions of brown, ugly, villanous worms gnawed, gnawed, gnawed, at the poor little tender leaves and buds,—held them in foul embrace,—polluted their sweetness with hateful breath. I could almost feel the shudder of the trees in that slimy clasp,—could almost hear the shrieking and moaning of the young fruit that saw its hope of happy life thus slowly consuming; but I was powerless to save. For weeks that loathsome army preyed upon the unhappy, helpless trees, and then spun loathsomely to the ground, and buried itself in the reluctant, shuddering soil. A few dismal little apples escaped the common fate, but when they rounded into greenness and a suspicion of pulp, a boring worm came and bored them, and they, too, died. No apple-pies at Thanksgiving. No apple-roasting in winter evenings. No pan-pie with hot brown bread on Sunday mornings.
CHERRIES.—They rivalled the apple-blooms in snowy profusion, and the branches were covered with tiny balls. The sun mounted warm and high in the heavens and they blushed under his ardent gaze. I felt an increasing conviction that here there would be no disappointment; but it soon became palpable that another class of depredators had marked our trees for their own. Little brown toes could occasionally be seen peeping from the foliage, and little bare feet left their print on the garden-soil. Humanity had evidently deposited its larva in the vicinity. There was a schoolhouse not very far away, and the children used to draw water from an old well in a distant part of the garden. It was surprising to see how thirsty they all became as the cherries ripened. It was as if the village had simultaneously agreed to breakfast on salt fish. Their wooden bucket might have been the urn of the Danaïdes, judging from the time it took to fill it. The boys were as fleet of foot as young zebras, and presented upon discovery no apology or justification but their heels,—which was a wise stroke in them. A troop of rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed little snips in white pantalets, caught in the act, reasoned with in a semi-circle, and cajoled with candy, were as sweet as distilled honey, and promised with all their innocent hearts and hands not to do so any more. But the real pièce de résistance was a mass of pretty well developed crinoline which an informal walk in the infested district brought to light, engaged in a systematic raid upon the tempting fruit. Now, in my country, the presence of unknown individuals in your own garden, plucking your fruit from your trees, without your knowledge and against your will, is universally considered as affording presumptive evidence of—something. In this part of the world, however, I find they do things differently. It doesn't furnish presumptive evidence of anything. If you think it does, you do so at your own risk. I thought it did, and escaped by the skin of my teeth. I hinted my views, and found myself in a den of lions, and was thankful to come out second-best. Second? nay, third-best, fourth-best, no best at all, not even good,—very bad. In short, I was glad to get out with my life. Nor was my repulse confined to the passing hour. The injured innocents come no more for water. I am consumed with inward remorse as I see them daily file majestically past my house to my neighbor's well. I have resolved to plant a strawberry-bed next year, and offer them the fruit of it by way of atonement, and never, under any provocation, hereafter, to assert or insinuate that I have any claim whatever to anything under the sun. If this course, perseveringly persisted in, does not restore the state of quo, I am hopeless. I have no further resources.
The one drop of sweetness in the bitter cup was, that the cherries, being