"It"s no use," the Captain answered. "We"ve tried that too."
General Antenna began to look somewhat worried, knowing that if the army couldn"t win the battle before Rusty Wren came home, all would be lost.
For no army of ants could stand and fight such a monster as he.
"I have it!" the General cried at last. "I"ve thought of the very thing.... Bring some stepladders!"
XIX
DADDY ESCAPES
THAT was a fine idea of General Antenna"s--that plan of bringing stepladders, so that the ant army might climb up on them and reach Daddy Longlegs, whom they were attacking.
And Captain Kidd told the General on the spot that it was a most happy thought.
"Then do as I tell you, at once!" the General ordered pompously.
"I can"t!" said Captain Kidd, who was terribly frightened, because the General was sure to be angry.
"_Can"t!_" cried General Antenna fiercely. "_Can"t!_ What do you mean, madam?" (Perhaps you did not know that Captain Kidd was a lady, as were also the General and the whole army, too!)
Captain Kidd"s voice broke as she stammered an answer to General Antenna"s rude demand.
"I know of only one stepladder in Pleasant Valley," she explained. "It belongs to Farmer Green. And it"s so heavy that the whole army couldn"t move it."
At that a shudder pa.s.sed over General Antenna"s fat body.
"Then we"re as good as lost!" she shrieked. "Daddy Longlegs will defeat us. And I"ll never hear the last of it."
And right there on the edge of the battle-field General Antenna shed so many bitter tears that Captain Kidd had to move aside slightly, to keep her feet from getting wet.
"Don"t weep!" cried the Captain in a husky voice. "It"s not your fault--really!"
"Whose is it, then?" asked the General brokenly.
"Why, Farmer Green is to blame, of course!" Captain Kidd replied. "If he hadn"t made his stepladder so big we might have used it and won the battle just as easily as not."
"That"s so!" the General agreed, drying her tears on a lace handkerchief. "And from this time forth, Farmer Green and I are deadly enemies!"
Meanwhile the battle still raged furiously. But Daddy Longlegs had not received a single wound. And perceiving, at last, that he was quite unharmed, he took heart again.
Finally it occurred to him that the ant army was totally unable to reach him, borne high in the air as he was by his long legs. And as his fear left him, he could think of no reason why he should stay where he was any longer.
Accordingly he pulled himself together and began to walk away. He moved right through the ant army; and the soldiers were powerless to stop him.
Just then General Antenna happened to glance over the battle-field. And her sad look at once gave way to one of great joy. She even gave Captain Kidd a hearty slap on the back--much to that lady"s distress (because it knocked her cap awry).
"Look!" cried the General. "We"ve won the battle after all; for the enemy is retreating! Daddy Longlegs is running away!"
Hurrying off then, General Antenna joined her army, and told her soldiers that they had shown themselves to be very brave, and that as a reward they might each have an extra drink of milk that night with their supper.
There was great rejoicing in the ant colony that evening. And General Antenna caused the news of the victory to be carried throughout Pleasant Valley.
But when he heard it, after he reached home, Daddy Longlegs laughed merrily.
"Why, they never touched me!" he exclaimed.
XX
LOST--A JACKKNIFE!
JOHNNIE GREEN couldn"t find his new jackknife anywhere. Since it was the third knife Johnnie had lost that summer, anyone might think that he wouldn"t have cared much, being so used to losing jackknives.
But Johnnie had been particularly proud of that knife. It had two blades, a small saw, a corkscrew, a gimlet, a leather-punch, and a hook for pulling a stone out of the hoof of the old horse Ebenezer.
Johnnie had worked in the hayfield on many hot days to earn enough to buy that knife. So it was no wonder that he wanted to find it. He hunted for it carefully--in the woodshed (where he had gone for an armful of wood), in the barn (where he had helped milk the cows that morning), and under the big oak in the dooryard (into which he had chased the cat). And not finding his knife in any of those places, he went into the pantry, for he remembered getting some jam and cookies there between breakfast and dinner-time.
The jackknife was not in the pantry. Johnnie even looked for it inside the cookie-jar. And failing to find the knife there, he consoled himself by taking three more cookies. Then he slipped out of the house and sat down behind the stone wall to enjoy his lunch.
All the time he was munching his cookies Johnnie Green was trying to recall exactly what he had done and where he had been since he jumped out of bed that morning. If there was any place he had forgotten, he intended to go there at once and look for his lost jackknife.
Having swallowed the last crumb of his goodies, Johnnie leaned back against the stone wall and closed his eyes in thought. He wondered if there wasn"t some out-of-the-way nook he had visited that day.
As he sat there, something tickled his ear. Then it tickled his cheek--and finally his nose.
Johnnie Green couldn"t help sneezing. And opening his eyes, whom should he see but Daddy Longlegs, standing on the tip of his nose.
"My goodness!" Daddy exclaimed when Johnnie Green sneezed. "I didn"t think the wind was going to blow to-day. But there"s an awful blast!
I"d better hurry home at once."
He had scarcely turned to go back where he came from when Johnnie sat up; and seizing his visitor quickly--but carefully--Johnnie removed him from his perch and held him, a captive, in his hands.
When he stepped from a stone to Johnnie"s head Daddy Longlegs had no idea that he was not walking on another stone. Who would have expected to find the head of a boy lying motionless against a wall?
As soon as he recovered from his surprise, Daddy Longlegs struggled to escape. But his captor guarded him with great pains.
"You don"t think I"m going to let you get away, do you?" Johnnie Green asked him.