The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1874-09-04
A Tree that Keeps n Standing Army.


st. Nicho.Gs fer september.
Tree that Keeps n Standing Army.
Here's story that bright little
humming- bird told me the other day.
As it started from somewhere in the
tropics, it grew to be pretty long &C.
count by the time it reached me here
in New York State; but it is founded
strictly upon fact:
What makes you live in such a
thorny tree? 2" said the humming- bird to
one OF her neighbors who always builds
her nest on the bull horn thorn.
4" It's capital place" said her friend.
"The thorns keep the monkeys away
from my babies, and the army drives off
all the crawling pests that make house
keeping so troublesome to little birds
in other trees.
Army What army?"
"Why, our army" said the little
bird. Don't you know that our tree
keeps an army p
You may be sure the humming- bird
was surprised to hear that. L was.
And if I didn't know her so well L
should have suspected her of spinning
travellers yarns. But she's honest
what she says can be depended on.
To make long story short, I'll tell
you about that army-keeping tree. It's
thorn tree, you must know, and as the
thorns grow in pairs, curved out like
bulls horns, the tree gets its name from
them. When the thorns are green they
are soft, and filed with sugary pulp,
which is greatly liked by a kind of small
black singing ants, at least in that part
of the world. The ants bite q small
hole near the tip of one of each pair of
thorns, then gradually eat out the in
terror of the two. The hollow shells
make capital houses for their young
ones, and never 60 without tenants.
How do the ants live after the houses
are cleared of food? The tree. attends
to that. On the stem of each leaf is
honeywell, always full, where the ants
can sip to their hearts content. These
wells supply them with drink. The
leaves furnish the necessary solid food,
in an abundance of small, yellow fruits,
like little golden pears. They do not
ripen all at once, but one after another,
so that the soldiers have steady supply
of ever-ripening fruit to eat, and are
kept busy all the time running up and
down the leaves TO see how their crops
come on. When an ant finds pear
ready for eating, he bites the stem,
bends back the fruit, and, breaking it
off, carries it in triumph to the nest.
1t would be cOwardly ant that would
not fight for home like that, and these
ants are no towards. Just touch limb
so as to jar it, and the valiant little
soldiers will swarm out from the thorns,
in great numbers, and attack the intrud-
er with jaws and stings. Not cater
pillar, leaf cutter, beetle, or any other
enemy of the tree, can touch one of its
leaves without paying the penalty. Thus
the tree thrives where it would other
wise be destroyed and the ants find
their reward in snug houses, with plenty
to drink and to eat. The small birds,
which hurt neither the ants nor the
leaves, also find protection with them,
and, 1t us hope, pay good rent IN morn
ing and evening songs.
Isn't that profitable partnership
Jnck.in-the-PHlpit, b" 81. Nicholas for
September.
Ofthe Little Man who Wanted TO be Big.
Coming to think of it, this is not n
fable. Many one has dreamed it, and
dreams it still, and nations will rise and
decline, thrones will crumble, and en-
tire races will be obliterated from the
face of the earth; but so long as man.
kind exists, there will also be men who
say:
81 would like to be big"
A father had two sons {; the one was
tall and stout, the other short and slim.
Ones name was Tobias, and because
he was little, folks called him Little To-
Il want to be big" said Tobias to the
folks who called him Little Tobias.
And he called his brother to his side
and stood upon the tips of his toes and
stretched his neck, and asked:
Gam l bigger now?"
ono" said the folks.
And Tobias perceiving that he was
not a particle bigger, said to himself :
81 will have TO try some other plan. "
Then he became a poet, and wrote
verses as beautiful as that OF Schiller,
and tragedies as grand as those of
Shakespeare, and comedies as spark
ling as those of Moliere-at least that
was what he imagined-and he flour
ished them aloft, and stood upon the
tips of his toes and asked;
Am L bigger now?"
Then came Criticism and Good Taste,
and stood at his side and measured
him, and said
No, you are not.
Then Tobias studied philosophy and
science aud literature, and wrote his
tory of the classics, like Vilmar, and