The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-05-12
The Unreasonable Ant.

From "a Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain.1
Now and then, while we rested, we watched
the laborious ant at his work / found moth
ing new in him-certainly nothing to change
my opinion of him. 1t seems to me that in the
matter of intellect the ant must be strangely
overrated bird. During many Summers now
have watched him, when 1 ought to have
been in better business and 1 have not yet
come across living ant that seemed to have
any more sense than dead one. 1 refer to the
ordinary ant of course; have had no expert
ence of those wonderful Swiss and African
ones which vote, keep drilled armies, hold
slaves, and dispute about religion. Those par
ticuar ants may be all that the naturalist
paints them, but am persuaded that the av-
erage ant is a sham. l admit his industry, of
course; he is the hardest-working creature in
the world-when anybody is looking-but his
Observation-Disclosures is the point 1 make against
him. He goes out foraging, he makes cap
ture, and then what does he do? Go home? No;
he goes anywhere but home. He doesn't know
where home is. His home may be only three
feet away; no matter, he can't find it,
He makes his capture, as 1 have said; it is
generally something which can be of no sort of
seven times bigger than it ought to be; he hunts
out the awkwardest place to take hold of it; he
lifts it up bodily in the air by main force, and
starts-not toward home, but in the opposite
direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a
frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength;
he fetches up against pebble, and instead of
going around it, he climbs over it backward.
dragging his booty after him, tumbles down
the other side, jumps up in a passion, kicks the
dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs
his property viciously, yanks it this way, then
that, shoves it ahead of him moment, turns
tail and lugs it after him another moment
gets madder and madder, then presently hoists
it into the air and goes tearing away in an en-
tirely new direction: comes to a weed; it never
occurs to him to go around it. No; he must
climb it, and he does climb it, dragging his
worthless property to the top-which is as
bright a thing to do as it would be for me to
carry a sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris
by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up
there he finds that that is not the place takes
a cursory glance at the scenery and either
climbs down again or tumbles down, and
starts off once more-as usual, in a new direc-
ton.
AT the end of half an hour he fetches up
within six inches of the place lie started from,
and lays his burden down. Meanwhile he has
been over all the ground for two yards around
and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came
across. Now he wipes the sweat from his brow,
strokes his limbs, and then marches aimlessly
off, in as violent hurry ever. He traverses
good deal OF zigzag country, and by and by
stumbles on his same booty again. He does
not remember to have ever seen it before; he
looks around to see which is not the way home,
grabs his bundle and starts. He goes through
the same adventures he had before, finally
stops to rest, and friend comes along. Evil
IDENTIFY the friend remarks that last years
grasshopper leg is a very noble acquisition, and
inquiries where he got it. Evidently the pro-
prietor does not remember exactly where he
did get it, but thinks he got it 'around here
somewhere" Evidently the friend contracts
to help him freight it home. Then, with judg-
ment peculiarly antic (pun not intentional),
they take hold at opposite ends of that grass
hopper leg and begin to tug with all their
might in opposite directions Presently they
take a rest and confer together. They decide
that something is wrong, they can't make out
what. Then they go at it again. just as before.
Same result. Mutual recrimination follows.
Evidently each accuses the other OF being an
obstructionist. They warm up, and the dispute
ends in fight. They lock themselves togeth-
er and chew each others jaws for a while;
then they roll and tumble on the ground till
one loses horn or leg and has to haul off
for repairs. They make up and go to work
again in the same old insane way; but the
crippled ant is at disadvantage; tug as he
may, the other one draggs off the booty and
him at the end of it. Instead of giving up, he
hangs on and gets his shins bruised against
every obstruction that comes in the way. By
and-by, when that grasshopper leg has been
dragged all over the same old ground once
MORE it is finally dumped at about the spot
where it originally lay. The two perspiring
ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that
dried grasShopper legs are poor sort Of prop
erty after all, and then each starts off in diff
ferent direction to see if he can't find an old
nail or something else that is heavy enough to
afford entertainment and at the same time
valueless enough to make an ant want to own
il