n pull it."

The storm was forgotten by the children as, with many squeals of glee,
they rushed into this midnight frolic.

"And now, Ben," said Tom, the guide, "I've just found something; I have
it in my hand. I propose, Ben, while the rest of us work, that you make
one of your stories out of it, and tell us all about it."

Tom opened his hand, and the children crowded around to see. There was a
shout of laughter.

"Why, that's only a dead June-bug!"

"Who wants to know about a June-bug?" exclaimed Jimmie, much to the
discomfiture of the guide, who knew a great deal about moose and deer
and bears and beavers, even if he didn't know much about a June-bug. The
guides had profound respect for the schoolmaster, Ben Gile, who was
really too wise and kind to laugh at another's ignorance. But this is
another story, and Jimmie learned better in the years to come.

"You're right, Tom," said Ben, "to want to know. Sometimes it's about
these commonest things folks know the least. When I was a boy it was
always so with me. There are several facts about a June-bug that are
interesting. First, it is not a bug at all; and, second, it comes in
May and not in June. It is really a May-beetle, and a great, clumsy,
buzzing, blundering fellow it is, as careless about its appearance as it
is about the way it enters a room. You know the old adage, 'Haste makes
waste'? Perhaps it's the haste that makes the June-bug's untidiness.
Beetles have hard wing covers--see these little shell-like casings?--to
cover the more delicate wings underneath. The June-bug has wing covers,
too, but it never keeps its best wings tucked in. They are always
hanging out in a crumpled way. These bugs eat the leaves of the trees,
and their children, little, fat, white grubs with horny heads, nibble,
as they crawl around under the surface of the earth, the tender roots of
the grass and the strawberry plants."

"Why, Ben, you've told me more already," said Tom, "than any dullard
like me could ever learn from a book. To think it's a beetle! But I
might have known from looking at it. Are all the beetles harmful?"

"Most of them are pests, and do a good deal of damage. Its cousin,
rose-beetle, is pretty, her body covered with soft, yellow hairs, and
she has rose-colored legs. But handsome is as handsome does, and
rose-beetle causes more damage than her clumsy cousin, for Rose feeds
on rose-bushes as well as on fruit trees. Indeed, almost everything that
comes to h