"O Mimi! O Linette! O Fifine!" cried Piccolissima, running from her brother to her sisters, "they have carried away all their cows. Each ant has his cow between his teeth; one holds her by the belly, the others by the wings; come see! come see!"
"Cows with wings!" cried the astonished little girls. Mimi, who knew all this, startled his little sister by saying, "The pet is right; she has good eyes; there are many grubs with wings; come, come, my small sister, it appears to me that you are discovering many things already known. My ladies, the ants, ought to choose you for their queen."
The same day, Madam Tom Thumb, who began to feel some confidence in the reason of Piccolissima, carried her into the garden, to the great joy of the little creature. It was a delicious place; there were in it long covered alleys, and even a small wood, where one might enjoy a sweet freshness in the heat of the day. Around a great hall, covered with foliage, were seats of soft green moss. It was there that Madam Tom Thumb used to embroider with her elder daughters; and there she placed Piccolissima, allowing her to run at large, only recommending to her prudence and discretion.
The child, who was formerly idle and weary of every thing, was in a fair way to become a happy young girl, thanks to the attention she began to give to every thing she saw, and to the interest which the wonders around her excited in her mind. She was enchanted with the thousand plants which embellished and covered the earth, and formed in the smallest flower an object of admiration which filled her soul. Very soon she met one of those beings who excited in her a lively curiosity,—an ant much larger than the little black ones of the shepherd race. The fine antennae, the three eyes, the top of the head, the legs, the belly of this one were blackish, but less glistening, and it was by the superiority of his shape, above middle size, and above all, by the reddish color of a part of his body, that Piccolissima recognized the russet ant of which her brother had spoken. The insect carried very laboriously a stick ten or twelve times as long as himself; a hillock of earth, which he met on his road, stopped him for some time, and Piccolissima, who was eager to help him through his difficulties, and who was tormented with a desire to enter into conversation with him, took it into her head to assist the insect, and hoped thus to render herself agreeable to him. She seized one end of the little rafter he was carrying, and in a tone which she tried to make as soft as possible, she said, "Will you allow me, little one, to help you?"
The ant, clinging to the earth with his hind legs, stood up straight, and threw out his antennae with a terrible expression. Piccolissima was so full of kind feeling that she never thought of exciting any anger; she thought that it was only a little struggle of his politeness; therefore she insisted, taking firmly hold of the bit of wood, and repeated, "I assure you it is a pleasure to me, and it will not fatigue me." Forced to loosen his burden, the ant opened his jaws full of formidable teeth, and advanced upon Piccolissima, walking on his hind legs; the two others stretched out in front, as well as his antennae, in sign of defiance; his body all bent, exhaling an odor of vinegar so pungent that Piccolissima, letting go the little stick, ran away as fast as she could, sneezing violently, and shutting her eyes. When she opened them and returned, thinking the ant was at her heels, she found her terrible adversary had again seized his big stick by one end, and had slid it over the lump of earth by means of a stone, which served him as a point of support. She saw him sometimes push it before him, and sometimes drag it after him, walking backwards till he reached the flat ground, when he pursued his way very fast.
Piccolissima, who did not forget that her mother had recommended discretion to her, followed at a distance. As she went on carefully, she saw long trains of ants resembling her enemy; each one of them was charged with a burden more or less heavy. All of them took their way towards a mountain shaped like a cone, full of little openings which, from a distance, appeared to be semicircular vaults; Roman architecture Piccolissima would have thought if the multiplicity of details of little architectural ornaments, all of wood work, had not given her the idea of an old Gothic fortress. The rapid and violent motions of the wild mountaineers did not frighten her; she walked up slowly, hardly touching her feet to the earth, holding her breath, observing every thing, and she was soon convinced that this little, busy people took no notice of her. She came nearer and nearer to the place where two great roads, covered with ants, terminated. She heard a confused noise, like the hum of a great city, or as the sound of the rain among the leaves.
"I thought they spoke only by signs which they make with the arms that come out of their heads," said Piccolissima, still going nearer; "why, then, this noise?"
The little girl was soon convinced that this noise was produced by the numerous and busy footsteps of a solemn, austere, and preoccupied crowd of ants. Not a word was said, but every one ran rather than walked, and they seemed like a thousand individuals, all actuated by one purpose. Supported on the lower branch of a chestnut tree, Piccolissima placed herself a little higher, but very near the citadel, which was one living mountain.
How can we relate what she saw then? It would take volumes. There would be as many histories as individuals. Her attention was attracted by the perseverance of one ant who carried a burden; by another who was striving to get over some obstacle. She saw them feed those who arrived laden and out of breath; she saw those who repaired the doors, who opened and shut the windows, which were not glazed like ours; others she saw as sentinels, standing on their hind legs, charged to watch over the general safety. The busiest carried in their mandibles, caressed with their legs and their antennae, licked with their delicate tongues, exposed to the sun, or carried quickly into the shade certain white balls which Piccolissima took at first for grains of wheat, because they had the form and size; but she was satisfied at last that these were the children of the ants in swaddling clothes. Piccolissima was so anxious to comprehend the mysterious talk, and the pantomime of all this innumerable crowd, that she became yet more attentive. The nurses caressed with their antennae in a peculiar way those eggs which were beginning to show life, and the little observer saw the slight movement of the incomplete being who, as soon as he was bidden, raised his head, which was almost imperceptible even to microscopic eyes, to receive the offered mouthful.
Whilst Piccolissima observed all this nursery work, an ant came and placed beneath her, in order to fill up a small hole, a sort of bundle of little sticks, which rolled away as soon as she left it. The ant took hold of it again, carried it to its place, and arranged it so as to make it firm; then, satisfied with her work, she went after something else to do. Shortly after this, a head, then some legs, then half of the body of a caterpillar came out of the living little fagot which the ant had mended her house with. It was a dead leaf in which an egg had been laid and nicely rolled up by the parent, and which my lady ant had taken for a beam, or something of the sort, and the vexed hermit scampered away, carrying his house with him, not caring at all for the hole which he and his house had been intending to mend.