I'm not entirely certain when it was I discovered my new friends.To the best of my knowledge it was sometime in the summer of 1966,though it's possible that it could have been one summer earlier.I only know that it was after all the streets were built and paved,and I remember playing with them the year Birchmount School was opened,and I was still to young to go.I remember sitting and playing with them right on the edge of Crandall Street,behind the Clark's house,maybe fifteen feet or so from the fire hydrant,not far from the corner of Sumner.While we played together,I recall that the fire trucks sometimes came roaring up Crandall Street because there was a fire alarm box on a telephone pole up near Snow Avenue.And it must have been just too much temptation to resist for some of the school kids,because the trucks always came when the students were coming from or going to the school.It seemed that they would come up sometimes two or three times a week.It was about the most exciting thing that ever seemed to happen around home.
My new friends were a bit unusual.First,there were a lot of them.And they were very hard workers,very conscientious and industrious.You see,my new friends were ants.They lived in a little mound out past our back yard, and my sister and I discovered them one summer evening.I'd never seen ants before,at least not that I could recall.They were a completely new thing to me.My sister called them bees,and ran to my mother yelling "Bees,Bees." I knew for certain that these were not bees,but I really had no idea of what they actually were.My mother came too investigate,no doubt worried about the presence of a bees nest anywhere where we were allowed to play.But when we showed her,she just laughed and told us what they were.I asked if they would sting,because I knew about bees,so this was my big concern with these new critters.My mother said that they would not sting,but it's possible they could bite. These particular ants were big red ones.
Once I knew that these creatures would not sting,I became intensely interested in them and their comings and goings.I determined to my satisfaction that they did not bite either,so now I was content to sit right down among them and watch what they were doing.Sometimes they just ran around all over the place.Other times they would march in a straight line one after the other,going someplace.And there seemed that there was no place they couldn't go.They would march through the grass,all the way to the curb,and even out into the street.They could climb trees as well.Sometimes they would come back to the nest carrying things that were nearly as big as they were,and that looked very heavy for them.Things like dead bugs,or even other kinds of ants.Usually I'd see them carrying smaller,black ants,so I assumed that they either didn't like black ants,or they were eating them.They also carried these little things that looked like Rice Crispies, so I thought that perhaps they were coming into the house and getting into the cupboards where my mother kept the cereal.But when I looked,there were no ants.I did grab a hand full of Rice Crispies and took them out to the anthill with me one day.I thought it would be kind of nice if the ants didn't have to go so far to find them,because they obviously seemed to like them.Later I found out that these were ant eggs, so the Rice Crispies more likely seemed like a cruel trick to them.
One day,after the start of school,but before the weather got cold,a boy came up the street on his way to school.He stopped while I was sitting there in the anthill and asked what I was doing.I showed him the ants,and he seemed to think that they were pretty neat.But what he did was pull this thing out of his pocket.It was a round looking thing that was made of glass, and I'd never seen whatever it was before. Once he had that out,he reached down and picked up an ant,and gave it a little smack with his other hand.He didn't kill it-it was still wiggling around.But it couldn't go far, because it was injured. Then this kid took the tool that he'd removed from his pocket and held it over top of the ant.The sun shone through the glass until a small point of light was right on top of the ant.The ant did not like this,and tried to get away.But,after just a few seconds, the ant's body began to smoke, and it just kind of burned up until there was no more ant. The boy then put the glass back in his pocket and said that he had to get on to school and he would see me later. I was kind of stunned at his little trick.It had never occurred to me to kill one of the ants.They were simply too interesting to watch.I did sometimes kick the hill,and at times I would accidentally step on an ant,and either kill or injure it.But I'd never seen anything like what this kid had done, and I felt fairly convinced that my mother would not approve. So I watched for a minute or two while the kid headed off in the direction of the school.By then,there were not a lot of kids passing by.Just a few stragglers.So I got back to the ants. Then,about ten minutes later, the fire engines came roaring up the street, past where I was sitting,right up to the corner where the firebox was.A police car followed.After a while,they all left, having found no fire.
For a few months perhaps,the ants became more or less an obsession with me.I would play for hours in the anthill, picking them up in my hands,even shoving then into my pockets. I noticed that they seemed to be like us.They stayed inside when it rained,and when it started to get cold,they disappeared altogether. So.when winter came, there were no more ants to play with. That hardly ended the obsession though.I wondered where they went, and I even asked my mother to find a book about ants that she could read at bedtime. All the ants were now gone, but,for a few glorious weeks-at least that's how it seemed to me,although my mother likely had a different opinion- I literally had ants in my pants nearly everyday.
My new friends were a bit unusual.First,there were a lot of them.And they were very hard workers,very conscientious and industrious.You see,my new friends were ants.They lived in a little mound out past our back yard, and my sister and I discovered them one summer evening.I'd never seen ants before,at least not that I could recall.They were a completely new thing to me.My sister called them bees,and ran to my mother yelling "Bees,Bees." I knew for certain that these were not bees,but I really had no idea of what they actually were.My mother came too investigate,no doubt worried about the presence of a bees nest anywhere where we were allowed to play.But when we showed her,she just laughed and told us what they were.I asked if they would sting,because I knew about bees,so this was my big concern with these new critters.My mother said that they would not sting,but it's possible they could bite. These particular ants were big red ones.
Once I knew that these creatures would not sting,I became intensely interested in them and their comings and goings.I determined to my satisfaction that they did not bite either,so now I was content to sit right down among them and watch what they were doing.Sometimes they just ran around all over the place.Other times they would march in a straight line one after the other,going someplace.And there seemed that there was no place they couldn't go.They would march through the grass,all the way to the curb,and even out into the street.They could climb trees as well.Sometimes they would come back to the nest carrying things that were nearly as big as they were,and that looked very heavy for them.Things like dead bugs,or even other kinds of ants.Usually I'd see them carrying smaller,black ants,so I assumed that they either didn't like black ants,or they were eating them.They also carried these little things that looked like Rice Crispies, so I thought that perhaps they were coming into the house and getting into the cupboards where my mother kept the cereal.But when I looked,there were no ants.I did grab a hand full of Rice Crispies and took them out to the anthill with me one day.I thought it would be kind of nice if the ants didn't have to go so far to find them,because they obviously seemed to like them.Later I found out that these were ant eggs, so the Rice Crispies more likely seemed like a cruel trick to them.
One day,after the start of school,but before the weather got cold,a boy came up the street on his way to school.He stopped while I was sitting there in the anthill and asked what I was doing.I showed him the ants,and he seemed to think that they were pretty neat.But what he did was pull this thing out of his pocket.It was a round looking thing that was made of glass, and I'd never seen whatever it was before. Once he had that out,he reached down and picked up an ant,and gave it a little smack with his other hand.He didn't kill it-it was still wiggling around.But it couldn't go far, because it was injured. Then this kid took the tool that he'd removed from his pocket and held it over top of the ant.The sun shone through the glass until a small point of light was right on top of the ant.The ant did not like this,and tried to get away.But,after just a few seconds, the ant's body began to smoke, and it just kind of burned up until there was no more ant. The boy then put the glass back in his pocket and said that he had to get on to school and he would see me later. I was kind of stunned at his little trick.It had never occurred to me to kill one of the ants.They were simply too interesting to watch.I did sometimes kick the hill,and at times I would accidentally step on an ant,and either kill or injure it.But I'd never seen anything like what this kid had done, and I felt fairly convinced that my mother would not approve. So I watched for a minute or two while the kid headed off in the direction of the school.By then,there were not a lot of kids passing by.Just a few stragglers.So I got back to the ants. Then,about ten minutes later, the fire engines came roaring up the street, past where I was sitting,right up to the corner where the firebox was.A police car followed.After a while,they all left, having found no fire.
For a few months perhaps,the ants became more or less an obsession with me.I would play for hours in the anthill, picking them up in my hands,even shoving then into my pockets. I noticed that they seemed to be like us.They stayed inside when it rained,and when it started to get cold,they disappeared altogether. So.when winter came, there were no more ants to play with. That hardly ended the obsession though.I wondered where they went, and I even asked my mother to find a book about ants that she could read at bedtime. All the ants were now gone, but,for a few glorious weeks-at least that's how it seemed to me,although my mother likely had a different opinion- I literally had ants in my pants nearly everyday.
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