"And there's a harvester, sir, who builds a big mound around its front door and carefully clears away the grass. Into the long galleries of its home it carries a great many seeds, and stores them away. All the chaff and hard parts which it cannot eat it carries out again."
"Leading up to the big mound," added Ben Gile, "are clear pathways as distinct as any path you or I make through the grassy fields. Perhaps ants are too little to do very much thinking, but they do many things which you and I would have to think about a long time before we should be able to do them. They have a good government which runs along without friction. They can build roads, dig tunnels, spin silken webs, build sheds, go to war, harvest grain into the storehouses, and keep a farm of aphids."
By the time the old guide had finished Betty was waving her hand the way she did in school. "Please, sir, I don't know half as much as Jack does. He has told all I know, and more, too."
Ben Gile smiled at Betty, for he was very fond of her. He stroked his white beard, and went on smiling as if he had some pleasant thought in the back of his head. "Well, now, we must decide who has won the prize. Mrs. Reece, what do you think?"
Mrs. Reece was proud of her Betty, and would rather have had her the generous little girl she was than have her win all the prizes in the world. "I think Jack has abundantly earned the prize."
"And now, children, what do you think?"
"Jack," said the guide, bringing forward three parcels, "here is the five-dollar gold piece—this will help you buy what you need; here is the book, which will help you to identify what you see; and here is the magnifying-glass. Remember, my boy, as you look through it, that it is God's work you are seeing. We have been through the old story of 'Eyes and No Eyes' with you boys. Peter, I'm afraid, goes out and sees nothing. You, Jack, have used your eyes, and already you have learned much that ought to make you a wiser man. As you look through the glass it is well to reflect that you will never see a cathedral window as beautiful as some wings you look upon, from the clear lights of the cicada's wing to the gorgeous dyes of the moth. You will never see groin or arch or hinge more wonderful than the covers of a wing or the exquisite joint of some little insect. You may travel the world over before you can find, made by man's hand, such mystery and beauty as lie about you in the natural world. All the dynasties of Egypt could not shape the scale on a moth's wing. All the religion of the past can shape nothing that will do the Creator so much reverence as the world He has created, the world we have about us. There, my boy, that is a long sermon, but you will profit by it, for the world will hear of you yet.
"And now there's a little girl in this room who has worked faithfully to find out what she could. She is five years younger than you, Jack, and I want her to have something, too."
For a minute Jack looked troubled; then he said, resolutely, "Let me give her my book, sir."