"
"They have an easy time of it, I suppose," said Lazy Larkin; "they don't
have to travel, for they cannot move."
"True, but these beautiful, transparent moss animals have to get their
living by catching creatures so small that you cannot see them. They have
great numbers of little fingers or feelers that are going all the time."
Larkin touched one, and it immediately drew itself in,--really _swallowed
itself_; for these little things take this way of saving themselves from
harm.
And so Larkin swam on, and found that it was a busy world beneath the
lake. He saw mussels slowly crawling through the sand; he found that the
pickerel, which he had supposed idle, was really standing guard over her
nest, and fanning the water with her fins all day long, that a current of
fresh water might be supplied to her eggs. And all the time the Joblilies
kept singing--
"Work! work!
Never shirk!
There is work for you,
Work for all to do!
Happy they who do it,
They that shirk shall rue it!"
And after their long swim around the lake, the Joblilies came back to
Duck Point again, and climbed out on the lily leaves. No sooner had
Larkin seated himself with the rest than he heard a great owl cry,
"Tu-whit! tu-whoo!"
Immediately the Joblilies leaped into the air, and the whole hundred of
them dashed into the water like so many bull-frogs, crying, as they came
down,
"What will the Joblily do,
When the great owl cries tu-whoo?"
Larkin looked around suddenly to see whither they had gone, but could
discover no trace of them.
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