her eye a file of her small black ants, and she saw them go and come
very busily upon a small stick which supported her only bean stalk.
Doubtless the wind had blown into Piccolissima's garden one of the
white cottony tufts which enfold the seeds of the poplar, for it was
a young shoot of poplar which served as support to the plant, and as
a garden for the ants. Upon the white cottony stem was an assemblage
of these little animals, green, brown, yellow, and transparent, all
plump, singularly alike, grave, immovable, like a Roman senate.
Certain active little creatures with fine shapes walked among them,
around them, over them, without appearing to hurt them, or
disturbing their gravity. The ants carried their easy manners still
farther; they struck lightly, rapidly, alternately, with their two
antennae, the backs and the sides of these peaceable animals; they
even went so far as to turn them over with their fore paws, and all
the while the other insects did not move, and allowed them to do as
they pleased.

"Look! look!" cried Piccolissima.

"Beautiful little wonder," answered her brother, "these are grubs,
that's all; and who does not know nowadays, that these are the cows
of the ants?"

"Their cows!" repeated the little girl; and she remained absorbed in
her examination. The ants still continued, in a playful and
irregular manner, to strike their little cows, whose trunks
Piccolissima saw were thrust into the bark of the aspen. Sometimes
an ant gave a little kick, and always one was at hand, with his jaws
extended, and his mouth open, ready to receive a drop of sirup,
which the eye of Piccolissima at last discovered falling from the