"But as I had started to say, we fathers, and the mothers too for that matter, always die before you youngsters are hatched out of your eggs. Now I shall probably die to-morrow or next day, because I have lived three days already, and that is a long time to live without eating."
Little Citrinus could hardly believe his senses. It was so wonderful. "But why don't you eat," urged Citrinus, who felt very badly to think of any one's going without food for three days. He always took a drink of sap every few minutes.
"Why, how absurd," replied the winged Orange-dweller, "don't you see I have nothing to eat with? No sucking-beak, no mouth at all. When I get my wings and my four eyes, I lose my mouth, and can't eat or drink any more."
This was incredible; but when Citrinus looked at the head of his companion, he saw it was perfectly true. He had no mouth. Citrinus gently waved his little sucking-beak, to be sure he still had it. Suddenly he began to cry; a sad thought had come to him. "And did my mother starve to death too?" he sobbed.
"Not at all, little one," rather impatiently exclaimed the other. Little Citrinus seemed to know so very little, indeed. "Your mother was not at all like me. When she was full-grown she had no wings, no legs, and no eyes, but she had a very long beak, and could suck up a great deal of orange-sap. If you will listen and not interrupt, I will tell you how we Orange-dwellers grow. When we are hatched from our eggs we are all alike, brothers and sisters. We each have a plump little body, six legs, two eyes, and a sucking-beak to get food with. We walk about for a few days, and finally stop on some nice green leaf or juicy orange, and stick our beaks far in and go to sleep, or do something very like it. We never walk about any more. Indeed, if you are a girl Orange-dweller you never leave this spot, but live all the rest of your life and die here. However, I am getting too far along in my story. While we are asleep we shed all of our skin, fold it up into a little ball or cushion and put it on our backs, together with some wax which comes out of small holes in our bodies. While shedding our skin we make a great change in our bodies. We lose our legs! So we simply remain where we went to sleep, with our beaks stuck into the leaf, sucking the sap. After a few days we go to sleep again, and again we shed our skins and fold them on our backs. But at this time something even more wonderful than before happens to our bodies. That is, to the bodies of the boy Orange-dwellers. For this time we lose our sucking-beaks, but we regain our six legs, and in addition we get a second pair of eyes, we find on our heads a pair of long, slender, hairy feelers, and, most pleasing of all, we have been provided with a pair of wings. Our wings are not yet full-grown or ready to fly with, so we still remain quietly in our resting-place for a few days longer, when we shed our skin once more, and then fly away, looking just as I do now. Our sisters, though, when they shed their skins the second time, make no change in their bodies, except to grow larger. They remain with their sucking-beaks thrust into the leaf. They keep increasing the size of the wax scale or shell over their backs, until they are entirely covered by it. Now they look just as your mother did. From above, all one can see is the flat circular wax scale with two spots on it, where the folded-up cast skins are. Underneath the scale lies the Orange-dweller, with its sucking-beak stuck into the sap, but with no legs or wings or long, hairy feelers. After a while she lays a lot of eggs under her body, and then dies. And soon the new family is born. Now this is the way we grow, and all of the wonderful things which have happened to me will happen to you,—if the Beetle does not get you."
With that the winged Orange-dweller flew away, and little Citrinus was left alone, wondering over the strange story. After taking a drink of sap from the leaf on which he was standing, he wandered aimlessly about until he came to a large yellow ball hanging from the branch, which gave out a delightful odor. Scrambling down the slender stem by which it was suspended, he walked out on to the shining surface of the orange; for, of course, that is what the yellow ball was. He tried a drink of sap from the ball and found it delicious. He decided to stay on the ball, the more readily as he was getting rather tired with his long traveling, and a sort of sleepy feeling was coming over him. So thrusting his beak far into the ball, he went to sleep. How long he slept he doesn't know, but when he awoke he could hardly believe his senses. He had no legs; and on his back there was a thin shell of wax and a little packet. He realized, too, that he was bigger than he was before he went to sleep. Then the strange story told him by the winged Orange-dweller came back to him, and he knew that the stranger had told the truth. The first great change had happened. He was delighted, for he thought it would be very pleasant to have wings and fly about wherever he wished, to see the world.
Suddenly a great shock came: his World trembled, then shook violently, and, with a quick wrench, started to move swiftly through space. Then came a stop, a series of shocks and curious whirlings, and then a filmy-white cloud settled down over it all, shutting out the sunlight and the blue sky. Finally there came a few more shocks and wrenches, and then total darkness and silence. Citrinus had held on to his world all through this, because his beak was still thrust into the fragrant surface, and now he felt thankful that he had come alive through these series of world catastrophes and convulsions and still had all the food he could possibly use.
After a few days, when Citrinus's world all nicely wrapped in tissue-paper and packed in a box with ninety-nine other similar worlds had traveled a thousand miles, the sunlight came again, and soon after came that greatest danger of all—that danger from which I saved him by staying my brother's hand in its ruthless rubbing off of the specks on his breakfast orange! Now Citrinus and Mary and I are all waiting impatiently for the day when he shall get his beautiful wings and his two pairs of eyes.
