Like most babies the mosquito larva believes that his mission is to eat as much as he can and grow up very fast. This he does, and if the weather is warm and the food abundant, he soon outgrows his skin. He proceeds to grow a new skin underneath the old one, and when he finds himself protected, he bursts out of his old clothes and comes out in a spring suit. This molting process occurs several times within a week or two, but the last time he takes on another form. He is then called a pupa, and is in a strange transition period during which he does not eat. He now slowly takes on the form of a true mosquito within his pupal skin or shell.
After two or three days, or perhaps five or six, if conditions are not altogether favorable, he feels a great longing within him to rise to something higher. His tiny shell is floating upon the water with his now winged body closely packed within. The skin begins to split along the back and the true baby mosquito starts to work himself out. It is a strenuous task for him and consumes many minutes.
At last he appears and sits dazed and exhausted, floating on his old skin as on a little boat, and slowly working his new wings in the sunlight, as if to try them out before essaying flight. It is a moment of great peril. A passing ripple may swamp his tiny craft and shipwreck him to become the prey of any passing fish or vagrant frog. A swallow sweeping close to the water's surface may gobble him down. Some ruthless city employe may have flooded the surface of the pond with kerosene, the merest touch of which means death to a mosquito. Escaping all of the thousand and one accidents that may befall, he soon rises and hums away seeking whom he may devour.
A mechanical process, that of handling milk at a model dairy farm, was effectively presented by Constance D. Leupp in an article entitled, "The Fight for Clean Milk," printed in the Outlook. By leading "you," the reader, to the spot, as it were, by picturing in detail what "you" would see there, and then by following in story form the course of the milk from one place to another, she succeeded in making the process clear and interesting.
Here at five in the afternoon you may see long lines of sleek, well-groomed cows standing in their cement-floored, perfectly drained sheds. The walls and ceilings are spotless from constant applications of whitewash, ventilation is scientifically arranged, doors and windows are screened against the flies. Here the white-clad, smooth-shaven milkers do their work with scrubbed and manicured hands. You will note that all these men are studiously low-voiced and gentle in movement; for a cow, notwithstanding her outward placidity, is the most sensitive creature on earth, and there is an old superstition that if you speak roughly to your cow she will earn no money for you that day.
As each pail is filled it is carried directly into the milk-house; not into the bottling-room, for in that sterilized sanctum nobody except the bottler is admitted, but into the room above, where the pails are emptied into the strainer of a huge receptacle. From the base of this receptacle it flows over the radiator in the bottling-room, which reduces it at once to the required temperature, thence into the mechanical bottler. The white-clad attendant places a tray containing several dozen empty bottles underneath, presses a lever, and, presto! they are full and not a drop spilled. He caps the bottles with another twist of the lever, sprays the whole with a hose, picks up the load and pushes it through the horizontal dumb-waiter, where another attendant receives it in the packing-room. The second man clamps a metal cover over the pasteboard caps and packs the bottles in ice. Less than half an hour is consumed in the milking of each cow, the straining, chilling, bottling, and storing of her product.
Practical Guidance Units. To give in an attractive form complete and accurate directions for doing something in a certain way, is another difficult problem for the inexperienced writer. For interest and variety, conversation, interviews and other forms of direct quotation, as well as informal narrative, may be employed.
Various practical methods of saving fuel in cooking were given by a writer in Successful Farming, in what purported to be an account of a meeting of a farm woman's club at which the problem was discussed. By the device of allowing the members of the club to relate their experiences, she was able to offer a large number of suggestions. Two units selected from different portions of the article illustrate this method:
"I save dollars by cooking in my furnace," added a practical worker. "Potatoes bake nicely when laid on the ledge, and beans, stews, roasts, bread—in fact the whole food list—may be cooked there. But one must be careful not to have too hot a fire. I burned several things before I learned that even a few red coals in the fire-pot will be sufficient for practically everything. And then it does blacken the pans! But I've solved that difficulty by bending a piece of tin and setting it between the fire and the cooking vessel. This prevents burning, too, if the fire should be hot. Another plan is to set the vessel in an old preserving kettle. If this outer kettle does not leak, it may be filled with water, which not only aids in the cooking process but also prevents burning. For broiling or toasting, a large corn popper is just the thing."