The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1880-06-04
The Unreasonable Ant.

Now AND then, while we rested, we
watched the laborious ant at his work.
found nothing new in certainly
nothing to change my opinion of him.
1t seems to me that in the matter of in
tellect the ant must be strangely over
rated bird. During many summers
now have watched him. when l ought
to have been in better business, and
have not yet come across q living ant
that seemed to have any more sense
than dead one. refer to the ordi-
nary ant, of course; have had no ex-
perience of those wonderful Swiss and
African ones which vote, keep drilled
armies, hold slaves and dispute about
religion. Those particular ants may be
all that the naturalist paints them, but
I am persuaded that the average ant is
sham. I admit his industry, of
course; he is the Understanding crea-
ture in the world-when anybody is
looking-but his ther-headedness is
the point I make against him. He goes
out foraging, he makes a capture, 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 have said;
it is generally something which can be
of no sort of use to himself or anybody
else; it is usually seven times bigger
than it ought to be; he hunts out the
awkwardest place to take hold of it; he
lifts it bodily up in the air by main
force, and starts-not toward home. but
in the opposite direction; not calmly
and wisely, but with frantic haste
which is wasteful of his strength; he
fetches up against a pebble, and instead
of going around it, he climbs over it
backwards, dragging his booty otter
him, tumbles down the other side,
jumps up in 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 a moment, turns tail and Tugs it
after him another moment, gets madden
and madden, then presently hoists it
into the air and goes tearing away in
an entirely new direction; comes to a
weed; it never occurs to him to 90
around it. No; he must climb it, and
he does climb it, dragging his worthless
property to the top-which is as bright
thing to do as it would be for me to
carry a sack of -four from Heidelberg to
Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when
he gets up there he finds that that is not
the place; take a cursory glance at the
scenery, and either climbs down again
or tumbles down, and starts off once
more-as usual. in a new direction.
At the end of half an hour he fetches
up within six inches of the place he
started from, and lays his burden down.
Meantime he has been over all the
ground for two yards around. and climb
ed 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 as ever. He traverses a good
deal of zig-zag country, and by-and-by
stumbles on his same booty again. He
does not rem ember 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 a friend comes along.
Evidently the friend remarks that a last
years grasshopper leg is very noble
acquisition. and inquiries where he got
it. Evidently the proprietor does not
remember exactly where he did get it,
but thinks he got it ''around here some
where" Evidently the friend contracts
to help him freight it home. Then,
with a judgment peculiarly antic
(pun not Intentionally, they take hold
of opposite ends of that grasshopper leg
and begin to tug with all their might
in opposite directions. Presently they
take rest, and confer together. They
decide that something is wrong, they
can't make out what. Then they 60 at
it again, just as before. Same result.
Mutual recriminationsf follow. Evidently
each accuses the other of being an OBJ
structionist. They warm up, and the
dispute ends in q fight. They lock
themselves together and chew each
others jaws for while; then they roll
and tumble on the ground till one loses a
horn or leg and has to haul off for
repairs. They make up and 60 to
work again in the same old insane
way, but the crippled ant is at disad-
vantage; tug as he may, the other one
drags 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 grass
hopper leg has been dragged all over