“Excuse my awkwardness,” said the newcomer. “It bothers me to fly by day. I like to go around the evening lamps. I can buzz loud enough for a fellow three inches long, though I am really not one. I am called a June bug, and I’m really a May beetle. What do you think of that? I have been told that the farmers do not like us, nor our children either. They are such nice, fat, white grubs too. They do love to suck the roots of plants though, and, as we grown fellows are just as fond of the leaves, between us we make the poor old plants pretty sick.” “I wish something had made you sick before you came here to disturb quiet folks with your buzzing,” said a large blue beetle, dropping some oil from her joints in her excitement. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she added when Ruth spoke to her about it. “It only proves that I have a right to be called an oil beetle. In these days it is so important to know who is who.” Ruth was watching the oozing oil curiously. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “Oh, no,” was the answer. “It is perfectly natural. I can’t move about fast, I am too fat, and I haven’t any wings to speak of. So when anything disturbs me I can only play ’possum and drop oil. I wasn’t always like this, though,” she went on, with a heavy sigh. “Would you believe it? I was born under a stone in a field of buttercups. I was tiny, but my body had thirteen joints and three pairs of as active little legs as you ever saw. Each had a claw on it too. What do you think of that? I used my legs right away to climb a nearby flower stalk. Something inside of me seemed to tell me just what to do, and when a bee came flying by, though she looked like a giant, I wasn’t a bit afraid, but I popped on her back, and clutched so tight with my six little claw-like legs she couldn’t have gotten me off if she had tried. But maybe she didn’t know I was there. Anyway, I had some lovely free rides, for she flew from flower to flower, and then she went home.” “Oh,” interrupted Ruth, “did you go right into the hive?” “Yes, but I didn’t notice much about it at first. I felt very tired, and I can only remember dropping from her back and going to sleep. When I awoke a funny thing had happened.” “What?” asked Ruth, full of curiosity. “My legs were gone, and only a half dozen short feelers were left me instead. But I didn’t mind. I was in one of the tiny rooms of the hive, and there was a nice fat bee baby for me to eat. I didn’t lose any time either; I was hungry. Besides the baby there were bee bread and honey. Who could ask for more? Indeed, I ate so much I went to sleep again, and, would you believe me? in that sleep I lost even my short feelers, and, worst of all, my mouth.” “Gracious!” said Ruth. “I suppose after that I slept again, for what’s the use of staying awake if you can’t eat? But that nap finished me. I waked up looking as I do now. It was a sad change. Maybe that is why I feel so blue and am called the indigo beetle.”