ABOUT A FLY.
WHAT becomes of the flies? They go somewhere. They are gone all winter, and
come back again in the summer, all grown, and ready for business. Scientific
men should solve this problem. Every man, woman, and child is interested
in knowing where flies go, so as to be able to avoid going there too. Flies
have a system which is governed by the hours. In the morning they find their
food; and until noon they will not attend to any thing
else. But in the afternoon
they are ready for fun. In the morning, a human being appears to a fly in
the light of a lunch-counter. It sweeps down on him, prowls over him, picking
up what it can find; but, if persistently interrupted, it will leave for
good, and, taking position near by, give him a look, equivalent to saying,
"Hang a hog, anyway!" and then put off for another field. A fly, if it would
keep out of a pauper's grave, has no time to fool away during business-hours.
In the afternoon it has leisure. In the afternoon you may brush away a fly
a thousand times; but it will come back again. And, the more you knock at
it, the more heartily it enjoys the performance. It is on the same principle
a miller flutters about a flame, or a swallow skims around a boy who is trying
to split its head open with a lath. There are several ways of getting rid
of flies; but knocking at them is not one of them. That only stimulates them
to greater exertions both in your behalf as well as their own: for a fly
cannot reason as you can; and your maddening flourishes are understood by
it to be so many invitations to hop in, and have fun. There is nothing small
or mean about a fly. Flies are not seen on moving trains or ocean steamers,
and rarely on the third floor of a building. But the most popular way to
get rid of flies is to hire a livery team, and drive with all speed across
the tops of mountains. A very few of the millions of flies
which infest our
homes never go away for the winter. After the winter has settled down to
work, they retire to an upper corner, and with one eye held shut by a leg,
and the other wide open, they lie on their backs, and look up in your face
for days at a time.
