Alice and Beatrice

								

to pieces to make the ants run about, and you would not let me, and told
me that it was cruel. Now I understand that those ant-hills are the
ants’ houses, where they live and lay up their food for the winter.’
‘You are quite right. Here in England the ant-hills are small, but in
other countries they are as high as you are. When I first saw them in
Russia, I could not believe that they were ant-hills; and the ants are
very little larger than those here, and yet they can collect such
quantities of earth and leaves, and can raise up such pyramids for their
houses.’
‘The ants are not so good as the bees; they do not make anything for us,
like those nice busy bees,’ said Alice. ‘I do not like them; and,
besides, the ant was very cross to the poor grasshopper.’
‘The ant was certainly very uncharitable; but all animals act only in
accordance with God’s laws. This is a fable to show the difference
between industrious and idle people. God has taught all creatures who
are to live through the winter, to labour and lay up stores; but the
grasshopper and butterflies who flutter in the sunshine, and many other
insects, by God’s will are made to live only for a short time, and
therefore do not need to store food like the ant and the bee.
‘The industrious ant serves in the fable to show us that we ought all to
work, and you know from the Bible, that God has ordained that man should
earn his bread in the sweat of his brow, which means by working. The
poor man works, or ought to work, with his hands, the gentleman, or the
educated man, with his head; but work is ordered for all—for the queen
in her palace, and for little children at school.’

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CHAPTER VII.



               SAIL TO BRANSCOMBE—HORSES CARRYING COALS.

‘ALICE and Beatrice,’ said grandmamma one morning, ‘make haste and eat a
good breakfast, for we are going to spend the day at Branscombe.’
‘Branscombe! Oh, how nice, grandmamma! But how are we going? Are we
going to walk?’
‘No, dear children, we are going in a boat. The weather is so fine
to-day, and there is so little wind, and John Bartlett tells me he
thinks that it will remain fine; and therefore we will go in his boat to
Branscombe, and see the beautiful rocks there.’
Alice and Beatrice made haste; they were very much pleased to go in a
boat, for they had never been before on the sea. The little girls would
have eaten no breakfast, unless grandmamma had told them that the sea
air would make them very hungry, and that they must try and eat their
breakfast properly. They were told that they were to have their dinner
at Branscombe, which pleased them much.
The cook had provided a nice dinner, and had packed it into a basket;
and the gardener carried it down the steep path and steps to the