“I don’t know,” said Mary softly. She felt ashamed.
“He wants to run home,” said father. “I know where he lives. In a little round world of ants, under the apple tree.”
“Oh! Has such a little tiny thing a real home of his own? I should have thought he lived just anywhere about.”
“Why, he would not like that at all. At home he has a fine palace, with passages and rooms more than you could count; he and the others dug them out, that they might all live together like little people in a little town.”
“And has he got a wife and children—a lot of little ants at home?”
“The baby ants are born as eggs; they are little helpless things, and must be carried about by their big relations. There are father ants and mother ants, and lots of other ants who are nurses to the little ones. Nobody knows his own children, but all the grown-up ones are kind to all the babies. This is a little nurse ant. See how she hurries off! Her babies at home must have their faces washed.”
“O father!” cried Mary; “now that is a fairy story.”
“Not a bit of it,” said father. “Ants really do clean their young ones by licking them. On sunny days they carry their babies out, and let them lie in the sun. On cold days they take them downstairs, away from the cold wind and the rain. The worker ants are the nurses. Though the little ones are not theirs, they love them and care for them as dearly as if they were.”
“Why, that’s just like Aunt Jenny who lives with us, and mends our things, and puts baby to bed, and goes out for walks with us.”