“Skinny heard the conversation and smiled. ‘Not a mosquito on the place, eh? Well I will have to get busy and change that lonesome state of affairs mighty quick!’
“So poor Pete carried the little pest along in his harmless tool-chest, and while he left it standing in the sunshine until he could find the boss carpenter, the sun-rays made Skinny feel so lively that she decided to try her wings and soar a bit.
“This was easier than she had thought possible, so she flew down to a little shallow pool in the creek for a drink of water. Here she found a slimy little back-water puddle so warm and comfortable that she soon chose that spot for the eggs she proposed laying to found the mosquito colony of Happy Hills.
“Early the following morning, Mrs. Spot Toad saw hundreds of oblong-shaped eggs floating on the slimy pool, but it was none of her business so she did not report the matter to the Board of Health as one of the Little Citizens would have done. In fact Spot was so busy with her own family cares that she forgot all about the mosquito larvæ soon after she had seen the small sooty specks floating on the water.
“Skinny left her eggs to hatch and went her way rejoicing, but not for long!
“She had hardly reached a tree where a dozing carpenter tempted her to eat, when a mother Blue Bird swooped down from her nest and caught up the lean, lanky mosquito to feed to her babies. Of course there was no nourishment in a poor thing like Skinny, but it would help fill the gaping mouths of the baby-birds a bit!
“Inside of twenty-four hours, Skinny’s eggs began to hatch out, but they were not mosquitoes—they were wrigglers. In appearance they resembled wooly, little caterpillars, but one end of the squirming body was the breathing tube for air. The fuzzy part of the wriggler was the means of its moving about, and they all wriggled or jerked about continually. Some grew faster than others, but all grew very fast, their heads seeming to grow faster than their bodies.
“In about six days’ time the wrigglers had grown so strong that they floated on the top of the water in the hot sunshine, so that the heat might crack open the skins that enclosed the young mosquitoes. As one shell opened after another, the insects crawled out and waited upon the tops of their little boats to dry their wings and legs. The sun soon accomplished this work, and then the hundreds of young mosquitoes were flying about waiting for an opportunity to eat something good.
“About this time the first Little Citizens appeared at Camp, and many of the children ran down to the creek to play in the water. Of course Skinny’s family sniffed the sweet young blood of the children there, and many a young mosquito ate till it almost burst open, and the Little Citizen had an irritating bite on arms or legs.
“Many, many of the young mosquitoes remained near the creek and laid eggs for a new family, and others flew away to the puddles in the woods, or settled on the eaves of the roof where rainwater had left tiny pools. Others saw the lake, and still others found water in pails or bottles and vessels of all sorts. In a very short time every one of Skinny’s children was laying a multitude of eggs that would hatch out in a day or two, and in ten to twelve days there would be a pest of mosquitoes at Happy Hills.