JUN IOR K ING 'S BUSINESS Edited by Martha S. Hooker
C A T £ f t p I L L E R $
FOR SUPPER
by Ruth Samarin
t o the yellow basket on her head as she ran along the jungle trail. Dodging wet branches and skipping over the nobby roots in the trail were fun today. Other days it was not fun, for the trail only led to the garden where she had to pull weeds. Those days she went in the afternoons when the sun was hot and the monkeys were still. But now it was early morning and all the world seemed damp and gray. The monkeys scolded loudly. Bing, bing, bing came •a familiar sound. Toto stopped and listened. Yes, that was the schoolbell. Every morn ing the schoolbell rang and every morning Toto went to school; every morning except this morning, that is. This was a special day and she didn’t want to go to school. Today there were caterpillars in the jungle. Her mouth watered as she thought of those beautiful, juicy caterpillars. S h e would look all day and fill her basket. Her mother would boil them and they would have a feast. Or maybe she’d fry them in palm oil— that was even better. Bing, bing, bing rang the school bell again. Sara and Marie and all her friends would be sitting on their benches now to hear the stories of Jesus and to learn to read. She would not be there, she thought, but she didn’t care. “It’s better to have a stomach full of caterpillars than to go to school,” she said out loud. She started down the trail again, but somehow it wasn’t so much fun. b a l a n c e d
The trail to the place of the cater pillars was longer than the trail to the gardens. The sun was higher and the monkeys had stopped scolding her. The way was narrow now and branches switched at her skirt. Then she heard it—the gentle thump of the caterpillars as they fell from the high trees. It sounded like drops of rain on her thatch-roof house. She dropped to the ground and snatched up the wiggling black-and-orange morsels that she would eat for supper. The sun rose high and began to drop again before her basket was full. The basket seemed alive. The cater pillars squirmed and wiggled in an attempt to escape from their prison. With a giggle, Toto put the basket on her head and started down the jungle trail for home. Now the sun was hot and the flies buzzed around her head, making angry noises. As she vainly swatted at them something stung her toe, then another toe. Oh! she had walked right into a line of “ pincher ants.” The basket full of caterpillars teetered and fell to the ground. Toto brushed at her feet ’til all the ants were gone. Quickly as •she could, she gathered up her prec ious supper and hurried home. The sun was getting lower and she did not want to be on the trail when a shadow .might be a leopard. She saw the smoke from the village and she wondered where her friends were. “ Sara! Marie!” she called.
Someone answered, “Toto, where have you been?” Her two friends came closer and admired the caterpillars. “ But, Toto,” Sara said, “ you missed the story of the plagues of Egypt. Now how will you be able to tell the life of Moses for the teacher at the end of the week?” Toto hadn’t thought of that. She was very good at Bible stories and she liked to review the stories for the teacher every Fri day. Marie gleefully a d d e d , “You’ll never guess what we had today! The teacher cleaned her refrigerator and at recess she gave us all a piece of ice. It was the strangest stuff. It burned our tongues when we ate it and it turned to water in the sun.” Toto’s eyes widened. She had never heard of such a thing. “We’re going caterpillar hunting on Saturday when we won’t miss school,” chided Marie. Toto hadn’t thought of that either. She was so eager to get caterpillars that she hadn’t thought at all. Now she’d miss part of Moses’ story and she hadn’t gotten any of that strange thing called “ ice.” That night Toto ate her caterpillar dinner but her heart was sad. She wondered if she’d feel better if she’d take some to •her teacher, but then she wasn’t sure missionaries ate cat erpillars. Well, she’d tell her teacher she wouldn’t miss again and maybe Marie or Sara would tell her the story she missed. Then Saturday she would hunt caterpillars with a happy heart.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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