“‘Let me stop and think,’ begged the other brown bug; ‘you hurry me so I can’t think of anything.’ So Brown Betty pulled her into a little cubby-hole, they were racing by, in the corridor, while she stood on guard, still waving the Captain’s sword.
“‘I will give you till I can count ten,’ she said. ‘One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight’”—
“Oh, dear!” groaned little Dick.
“‘Nine—ten’—
“‘Straight ahead! turn to your right!’ screamed the other brown bug; and out into the long corridor they stepped once more, and ran like lightning; and then, after awhile, ‘Turn!’ she said; ‘I heard them say that they had built a secret way;’ and there was a little narrow slit of a way, down which they turned; and they turned, and they turned, till finally after they had got through turning, all of a sudden out it came into the green grass; and, don’t you think, right around the door, only they didn’t see it, it was so covered with a clump of leaves, were six little, wee, tiny brown bugs, all crying and screaming and rubbing their eyes for their mammy, and there she was right in their midst.”
“O Polly! was it Brown Betty’s home she got to?” screamed little Dick, throwing his arms around her, his cheeks aflame.
“Yes,” said Polly, “it truly was; and Brown Betty would never have found it at all if she hadn’t gone back to save the other brown bug.”
“And what did she do with the Captain’s sword?” at last asked Dicky, coming out of his entrancement.
“I don’t know,” said Polly; “but here come the boys, Dicky.”