The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-02-13
A FLY IN WINTER.
The Pleasing aud Exhilsrsting Antics of
the Solitary Insect.


sertion, but it is true, and its correct
ness can be demonstrated with mathe-
NAUTICAL precision by any one who
cares to undertake the job free of ex-
pense. l, alas! am not that man.
l am prepared to assert, however,
that the laws of Nature, like human
laws, have their exceptions. Behold
then, the sad fate of the fly in winter.
Cut off from all that made life one de-
lirious dream of Joy in the sweet sum-
mer-time long ago, he wanders lorn
and blghted being on the face of the
earth.
See him on the dinner-table-one fly
all by himself. He looks on every side
of him with his hundred eyes, and sees
no other of his species He is alone
in his age. No sweet-faced Sunday
girl fly peeps at him from behind the
sugar-bowl, or bushes when she turns
the corner of the butter-dish and acct
dentally meets him face to face, with a
sort of how-c ame-you-there expression
in her large, thoughtful eyes.
No sister greets him when he goes
home at night, and asks him whether
he has brought her any New Orleans
molasses from down town. No brother
meets him in the hallway and says:
"Well, Charley, did you go long of
mince-pie to-dayp"
No mother stands ready to comfort
him and soothe his soul after his daily
struggle for bread and butter and sugar
and coffee and milk and things. No
father comes forward to pat him on the
back and say:
go on, my son, as you have begun,
and you will become an eminent mem
Der of fly society-perhaps greater than
horse-fy."
No creditors-but then / suppose
that, as flies are supported at the ex-
pense of the community, they have no
creditors.
This is sad state of existence-this
state of the fly in winter. But Nature
is full of eompensations. Woman S
work is never done; neither is fly's.
He gets up just as early and goes to
bed just as late in the winter as he does
in the summer. And he is infinitely
more industrious. He has to flyaround
and scramble to keep warm.
o, the wild, unspeakable Joy of fly
who finds mans nose in the tender
dawn of winter morning! The only
nose in the room and the only fly!
Does the fly rise to the occasion?
He does. And he risas to the nose,
too.
He sits upon it and walks around it,
and flies away and comes back to it.
and otherwise expresses his Joy.
20 &c
the fly never tires. In the summer the
fly sometimes gets Disguised with the
man S antics and goes awuy. Then the
man gets small rest until another fly
comes along.
But in winter the man wakes up and
sees the fly. He makes dab at the in
sect, and it shoots madly away into
space for about six inches and then
careers back and clings once more to
the mans nose. The man sees that
there is but one fly He watches that
fly. His eyes become fascinated by its
moveme ats. When it wings its way off
into space, the man strains his eyes
after it; and when it comes back and
sits on hrs nose, he looks cross-eyed at it,
After time he gets up and stealth
Murderous thoughts course through
his brain. He looks for the fly.
The fly is on the gas-globe.
The man lies down and pretends to
be asleep. Then the fly comes and sits
on his nose. The man hauls off and
smites. He knocks his false teeth down
his throat and splatters water into both
his eyes. When he dries them, he sees
the fly sitting on the bed-post smooth
ing his spit-curls with his spare legs.
The man rises slowly. He strains
every muscle in his back trying to get
up so slowly as not to brighten the fly
He draws near to the motonless insect
Once more he smites. But before the
towel touches the bed-post the fly has
whizzed off and pitched on the man IS
wife's nose
Then the man smiles a horrid smile
and rolls back into bed. And the next
moment the man feels the fly trying to
crawl into his ear
Desp ration seizes him. He Jumps
up and dresses himself He goes out
and tries to buy some dy-paper 1t is
useless. The storekeepers laugh at him.
''Why, SIR they say: 1--WE have no
fy-paper this time of year"
Then he tries to buy a fy-trap; but
they are all packed away until next
summer.
He goes home. Despair is rising in
his soul, when suddenly a brilliant
idea strikes him. He goes out and
borrows a neighbours son, aged ten.
He takes the boy to his room and shows
him the fly. He promises the boy half
a-dollar if he catches the insect.
The boy enters upon the task with
all the enthusiasm of youth. He climbs
over the furniture recklessly, smashes
a fifty-dollar mirror and a four-hundred-
day clock, and finally kicks over the
lamp and sets the carpet on fire. After
the conflagration is over, the boy APP
pears with smile on his face.
'I've caught him." he says, holding
out lightly fist.
GIVE him to me-" says the man.
The boy opens his hand.
The man grabs.
But the fly escapes, just the same.
The reader may now 90 back to the
place where the man first saw the fly,
and just keep reading to the end and
going back till he gets tired He will
thus learn just what happens to the
man who tries to catch the solitary but
experienced winter fly, and he will not
ha no 4, @ t;,.oI M, l, - ,,.o.. III