“I suppose,” Madame Vespa was saying, “I suppose we wasps can scarcely be called general favourites. We have a sting, you see, but, my friends, that was intended for laying eggs, and if we use it on people it is because they meddle in our business. It is our way. We _will_ sting those who bother us. Now, in our community—for we are social wasps—the female is unquestionably the better half. We have our rights and we insist on them. My mate was a good-for-nothing fellow, like the rest of them. I didn’t marry him until Fall, and he soon left me, and did nothing but perch around in the sunshine with others like him, and I had all the hard work of the home. Finally he died. I suppose he couldn’t help that, but I doubt if he would have made an effort anyhow. Well, reproaches are of no use now, for he is very much dead by this time. I have had a whole Winter’s sleep since I saw him last. We queen wasps always sleep in Winter. We are the only ones of the colony who do not die when cold weather comes. You see, our community is not like the bees. It lasts only for a Summer, and each Spring the queens wake up and start a new one. That was what I did. I slept in the crevice of a barn and left it full of plans. You can imagine the task before me, but I was plucky and soon chose a tree to suit me. My house was made of paper, and I should like to say right here that we wasps are the first paper makers in the world, for while Egypt still traced her records in stone, or on the inner bark of the papyrus, my ancestors were manufacturing paper, that man has finally learned to make in the same way. For paper is only vegetable fibre reduced to a pulp and pressed into sheets.” Ruth’s eyes were wide with astonishment, and she was edging nearer to Madame Vespa. “Can you really make paper out of wood?” she asked. “Of course. See my jaws? They are made to chew wood. Not decayed wood either. That may do for wasps who live under ground, for the brownish paper it makes isn’t strong enough to stand exposure. I choose good wood, and I make fine gray paper.” “I wish you would tell me how you do it,” begged Ruth. “Why, I simply gnaw the wood with my powerful jaws, and chew it until it is a pulpy mass, then I spread it in a sheet, wherever I wish it, and smooth and pat it with my feet. See how flat they are? I have heard of people beginning their houses at the cellar and building up. I consider that perfectly ridiculous. I always begin at the top. First, I make a slender stem or support to fasten the nest to the tree. Then I make three or more six-sided cells, which I hang from the support, and lay an egg in each, fastening it in with glue, for the open side of the cell is down. After this I enclose my cells with a wall of paper, and by this time, I am glad to say, my children begin to hatch, and though at first they look like horrid little worms, who can’t help themselves at all, I always know they will grow like me soon, and do a great deal of work.