One sunny day in the garden, Andy the tiny ant was looking at the big hill that rose in front of him. “If I only could reach the top!” he said, with a sigh, “But everybody said: ‘It cannot be done!’ I know they are right, but still, if I only could reach the top!”
So he thought and thought until a plan came into his head. “I will ask my friend, Billy the Beetle, to help me! He is so strong, he can pull me up the hill.” So he begged and he begged, until at last Billy said he would do it.
Billy got a long green blade of grass and with one end made fast to his neck and the other fast to Andy’s body, and away climbed Billy to the top of the hill, pulling Andy behind him. Up and up they went, until they were nearly at the very top.
Then Andy called out, “Where are you now?”
“Halfway up,” said Billy.
After a bit Andy called again, “How far up are you now?”
“Seventieths of the way,” said Billy.
Then a little later, “Where are you now?”
“I am looking for a place to tie this string to!” said Billy.
“Don’t you say so!” cried Andy. “Why, that shows we are at the top of the hill. Come and take a look at the view!”
So Billy untied the string and threw it down the hill, and the two climbed up and looked all round them.
“To be sure that is a fine view!” said Billy.
“Yes,” said Andy the Ant. “And you see how these people who said I could not come up here were in the wrong.”
“Yes,” said a voice behind them, and looking around Andy and Billy saw Polly the Black Bee standing there. “Yes, they were in the wrong; but you mustn’t forget that it is a good way down and a very hard way up. I myself cannot crawl up an ice — packed rock.”
“But I am going to come down the same way as I came up,” said And.
“Yes,” said Billy, “Andy is going to fasten this green string to his body, and I will climb straight down.”
Now Polly’s curiosity was excited to see what would happen. So she flew quickly ahead of Andy and Billy, and settled herself in a comfortable place to watch the performance.
So down started the two friends, and all went merry as a marriage bell till Billy’s head became so much heavier than Andy’s body that the inclination of the hill threw Billy over on his back and he could not right himself again.
“What on earth is the matter?” cried Andy.
“I cannot right myself. I am too heavy. Go on without me,” answered Billy.
“Nonsense!” cried Andy. “You have been good enough to pull me up here, and I will not desert you and leave you on the ice-covered rocks. Polly the Black Bee, will you help me?”
“And what do you think I can do to help you! I cannot possibly help myself,” said Polly. “I only came to see what was to happen.”
“Go and ask some of your friends,” said Andy.
So Polly set out to find help. Meanwhile she turned to Andy and said, “But did not the people who said you could not come content themselves with your being contented with having come, instead of pushing your way right down the hill and upsetting even your friend?”
“They did not,” said Anthony, “and I assure you I came down the way I came up.”
When Polly the Black Bee had got some eight or ten of her friends together, she returned to the hill with them. When they came near they said, “What’s this?” and “What’s that?”
Billy the Beetle explained what was the matter, and they all took hold of his legs and lifted him up and set him on his feet again, and afterward they adjusted the balance of Andy and Billy’s body and started on again down the hill.
Polly had suggested to Andy to bring the string along to show the way he came in and with its help he arrived home that night safe and sound.
And on his way home he met with his brother, and said to him, “How large and wise men appeared to be before I began to see the world. But now I have this to say to them, that in this world there is no matter or space but exists to be travelled through.”
And in the same way we find the mind still increases in sublimity; and at a distance in the heavens we perceive another Man – God be praised! – there also.
Nothing more could possibly be said about “The TreadAeronauts.”