However, all this perhaps has little to do with our great Elm, except, that one must be grateful that it has been spared to cause the eyes to rejoice in its beauty and to refresh us with its shade. We built a rustic seat, against its trunk, and there in the warm summer days and evenings which succeeded the winter of our coming to the Old Farm, I was wont to sit and meditate, and sometimes doze. It was a favorite spot with me, but others of the family often shared it with me, or enjoyed it by themselves. This will well enough introduce a matter which I have now to lay before the reader. It came to me from the Schoolmistress, who, I venture to hope, is not forgotten by the readers of "The Tenants of An Old Farm."
My dear Mr. Mayfield:
The package that I herewith send you has a strange history which I beg to recite ere you break the wrappings and examine the contents of the parcel.
It happened during one of the warm days of last June that I sat on the rustic bench under the Great Elm and read Mr. Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal." I closed the book and thought, with an exquisite sense of its beauty and fitness, upon the poet's opening verses which contain a description of June, and in which are these lines:
"'Tis Heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
There is no price set on the lavish Summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer."
As I conned the words my eyes slowly wandered along the landscape, and my heart rejoiced in the royal bounty of beauty which the poet sings. Then my vision returned to the objects just around me, and gradually became fixed upon some of the living things about which you have kindly told us so much new and interesting. Indeed, they seemed already like old friends, and I watched with keen zest their various movements.
How bright everything was, and how peaceful the tone of Nature! Butterflies flitted by, beating the air in their leisurely way, then rested on leaf or flower while they opened and closed their wings with graceful, fanlike movements. The winged Hymenoptera dashed by with the sharp, quick wingstroke of their kind, or hung humming above the flowers. Honey-bees, Carpenter-bees, Digger-wasps, the blue Mud-dauber, the brown Paper-wasp, Hornets and Yellow-jackets were busy at their various occupations. One dusted pollen into its "basket;" another dumped aromatic pellets of sawdust from a cedar rail; another scooped up mandible hodfulls of mortar at the edge of the brook; others plucked chiplets of old wood from a weathered fence post; all seemed happy, and devoted to peaceful industry.
The great green Grasshopper was in hearing, if not in sight, the veritable "hopper" whose long threadlike antennæ and wedge shaped head you have taught us to recognize as marking the true from the so called grasshopper or locust. He sat upon the tall grass on the bank of the Run close by the spring house, and shrilled his piping love call to his mate. The annual Cicada, too ("Pruinosa" you called it), was sounding his amorous drum from the trees with a volume and sharpness of sound that far exceed those of his cousin german the Seventeen Year Cicada. His silent ladylove might occasionally be seen flitting from bough to bough. An Orbweaving spider's web was spun upon an adjacent bush, and three courtiers were established at different parts of the margin of the snare awaiting the complaisance of Madam Aranea the housekeeper. Near my feet a bevy of Fuscous Ants[B] were tugging with great to-do at a crumb of sweet cake, while their fellow formicarians were equally concerned in covering and screening the gate of their nest that lay to the right under the verge of the Elm's shadow. Birds of several species were near by; Robins whistled in the meadow, a Vireo sang in the tree tops, Sparrows twittered around the birdcote; Hens cackled in the barnyard, and wakened the hearty, answering "Tuk-aw, tuk-aw!" of the big red Rooster. Out in the lane Sarah's conch shell was sending a melodious call to Hugh whom the Mistress had bidden her to summon from the wood pasture. The whole aspect of Nature, indeed, was so charming that I was soothed into a delicious repose of body and mind.
I am conscious, dear Sir, that I shall lay a heavy tax upon your credulity by what I am now to relate. Or, perhaps, you will smile and say that your friend Abby has fallen to dreams and visions, and like some of her young pupils has imagination so little disciplined as to be quite unable to distinguish between a vivid waking fancy or dream of sleep, and a real occurrence. Very well, I must bear your unbelief as best I may, and at all events you will listen to my story.
Will you believe that among the Tenants of our Old Farm is a nation of Fairies? You have not suspected their existence heretofore; but then, neither did I suspect that legions of curious beings are all around us until the wand of your knowledge had touched my eyes, and opened them to the wonderful life histories that are being wrought out among our fellow tenants of the insect world.