New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-10-20
The Unreasonable Ant.f..

The Unreasonable Ant.
Now:AND then, while we restedl we
watched the laborious ant at his work.
I found nothing new in him certainly
nothing to change my opinion of him.
It seems to me that in the matter of In
tellect. the ant must be a strangely over
rated bird. During many summers
now have watched him. when ought
to have been in better business, and /
have not yet come across living ant
that seemed to have any more sense
than o dead one. refer to the Ordi-
nary ant, of course; I 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
l am persuaded that Che average ant is
a sham. I admit his industry, of
course; he is the hardest working crea-
ture in the world-when anybody is
looking but his Observation-Disclosures is
the point make against him. He goes
out foraging, he makes q 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 I 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 q frantic haste
which is wasteful of his strength; he
fetches up against 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 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 a moment, turns tail and Tugs it
after him another moment, gets madden
and madden, then presently HOSTS It
into the air and goes tearing away in
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
"a thing to do as it would be for mo to
carry 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; take a cursory glance at the
scenery, and either climbs down again
or tumbles down, and starts off once
more-as usual. in 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
edall 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 a
hurry as ever. He traverses a good
deal OF zigg-zag country, and by-and-by
stum6les 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 a friend comes along.
Evidently the friend remarks shat q last
years grasshopper leg is a. very noble
acquisition. and inquiries where he got
it. Evidently the proprietor does not
remember exactly where he did ret it.
but thinks he got It *around here some-
where Evidently the friend contracts
to help him freight it home. Then,
with Judgment peculiarly antio
(pun not Intentionally, they take hold
OF opposite ends of that grasshopperleg
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 20 at
it again, just as before. Same result.
Mutual determinations follow. Evidently
each accuses the other of being an OBJ
structionist. They warm up, and the
dispute ends in fight. They lock
themselves together and chew each
others jaws for while; then they roll
and tumbleon the ground till one loses a
horn or q leg and has to haul eff for
repairs. They make up and 20 to
work again in the same old insane
way, but the crippled ant IS at disad-
vantage; tug as he may, tie other one
drags off the booty and him at the end
of it. Instead Of giving up, he hangs
on and gets his sbins bruised against
every obstruction that comes in the
way. By-and-by, when that grass
hopper 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 grasshopperlegs are
poor sort Of property after all, and
then each starts off in different direc-
ton 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 it.-M0rk I&'a;,,'s'' 4
TRAMP A5r0ad."