that I lost no time in striking a light and adjusting the netting. I now saw them emerging from every conceivable hiding place. Trooping they came, from behind picture-frames, from under the bureau; out of vases and old empty bottles. They were climbing and clambering and pitching towards me with energy. I noticed a steady stream of them shooting out of the closet through the key-hole, with such velocity that they went warping half-way across the apartment before they could check themselves sufficiently to tack around and dive for the bed.
They had all they bargained for, to get safely through that key-hole, too. There was not much spare room, I can tell you. But for the great pressure from behind kept up by others anxious to get through, many a large fellow would have been sticking in that opening yet. But once they got started in, there was no backing out; no, indeed! On! on’, was the cry, and they pressed forward with a rush, often sacrificing a leg or wing by the maneuver. But they didn’t seem to care for the loss of one of those members so long as their bill remained intact. Deprive a mosquito of one wing, and he will seem to laugh at you while he makes the other do double duty. Brush off one leg, and he will shake the remaining ones triumphantly in your face.
TO THE HILT IN BLOOD.
But damage his bill and you demoralize him at once. He becomes immediately disheartened. He loses caste among his companions and confidence in himself. He wabbles about here and there to no purpose, like an old bachelor. You deprive him at once of his song and his supper. You can hardly picture to yourself a more dejected insect, one more hopelessly down in the mouth. He withdraws to the ceiling, or curtain, and looks with envious eyes upon his associates gorging themselves while his poor digestive organs are drying through inactivity.
We would be inclined to pity him in his sad condition, were it not that we hold the whole insect race as coming under our ban. The whine of disappointment, long, loud and quavering, that went up when they ascertained I was protected, will always remain a fixture in my memory.
As they closed around the bed, so numerous were they, their flight was actually impeded. Down they settled with locked wings on the bar above me, thick as snow-flakes around some old uprooted pine by the Madawaska. I had long heard of the mosquitoes of this locality, and was prepared for an introduction to formidable insects, but found them even worse than I expected.
Discouraged by the mosquitoes, I fled to a neighboring city, only to find that it is the stronghold of fever and ague. In other parts it may be more active for a few months of the year, but here it stays by the people like their consciences. The winds may rise and comb the valley until the very grass is lifted by the roots and borne to the mountains. The sun may grow weary of well doing, enter Capricorn, and for a season be hid; or the rains may descend until the narrow slough—by which the city is situated—becomes a wide-spreading lake, through which ships of the line might plow with safety; but the chills and fever stays by them still. There is no “shaking” it off. It holds its grip like a mortgage. The tender limbs of the new-born babe, and the pithless bones of ripe old age, shiver alike in its awful grasp.
The citizens of this sad place are a serious, matter-of-fact people, who seem to think it was not the original intention that men should spend any time in laughter, for they indulge very little in witticisms or humor. A good joke is often lost upon them, and the perpetrator of a bad one places himself in jeopardy. A person who attempts a pun that does not carry its point before it, like a sword-fish, is in danger of being immediately seized from behind and hurried in the direction of the Insane Asylum.
While stopping in this delightful place I visited the small theatre of which the inhabitants are justly proud, and shall never forgive myself if I fail to mention the orchestra, that discoursed most eloquent music on that occasion.