A Lesson from Ants

From: The Lessons of Little Langhorne

Langhorne could hardly believe his eyes. He thought for sure a trick of great significance was being played on him. Yet before him, sure as the sun is yellow and the sky blue did this wonderful sight reside.

Ants!

Ants on a sidewalk. Real live ones too.

Ants carrying a spider ten times their size. A big nasty hairy one. Langhorne naturally needed to inspect this situation further, and so he proceeded to stick his unusually nosey nose in their business.

Looking through his big coke bottle glasses he could practically see the expression on the tiny ants’ faces. He decided they looked tired, but on and on they went, he found it hard to keep up.

“Stop!” he commanded.

No response, apparently he had little authority over such little creatures.

“I said stop!”

Again they carried on about their business taking no notice of the bi-speckled nose. They barely noticed the change in temperature that came with his shadow now cast over them. Lifting such a great beast was too tedious a task to listen to trifling commands from a curious boy. Langhorne eventually reached the same conclusion and proceeded to let them pass, but not without first running through a mill of questions.

“Are you going to eat him?”

“Will he taste good?”

“Is he a he?”

“Do you think me and my friends could carry a giant too?”

“Was it dead? Did you kill it? Was it a blood bath? How many men did you lose?”

And on it went. His questions flowed from his mouth like saliva dripping from a mastiff’s mouth during a humid day. He asked so many he failed to notice that they had left him to question alone.

And so our young little Langhorne learned that those who are mighty are not always so. Of course he did not realize he had learned such a crucial lesson.

By: Justin Zadorsky