“You’re both right,” said the dung beetle, and he was invited in, as far in as he was able to get under the pottery shard.
“You have to see my little earwig!” said a third, and then a fourth of the mothers. “He’s the most lovable child and so much fun! They’re only naughty when they have a tummy ache, but you get that easily at their age.”
And every mother talked about her children, and the children talked too and used the little fork in their tails to pull at the dung beetle’s whiskers.
“They think up all sorts of things, the little imps!” said the mothers, reeking of motherly love, but this bored the dung beetle, and so he asked if it was far to the hotbed.
“It’s way out in the world, on the other side of the ditch,” said the earwig, “I hope none of my children ever go so far, or it would kill me.”
“I’m going to try to get that far though,” said the dung beetle and left without saying good bye, which is the most elegant.
By the ditch he met several of his relations, all dung beetles.
“This is where we live,” they said. “It’s pretty cozy here. May we invite you down here where it’s warm and wet? Your trip must have tired you.”
“It certainly has!” said the dung beetle. I was lying on linen in the rain, and cleanliness especially takes a lot out of me. I’ve also gotten arthritis in a wing joint from standing in a draft under a pottery shard. It’s really refreshing to be amongst my own kind again!”
“Maybe you came from the hotbed?” asked the oldest one.
“Higher up than that!” said the dung beetle. “I come from the emperor’s stable, where I was born with golden shoes on my feet. I am traveling on a secret mission, and you can’t ask me about it because I won’t tell you.”
Then the dung beetle settled down in the rich mud. Three young female dung beetles were sitting there. They giggled because they didn’t know what to say.
“They’re not engaged,” said their mother, and then they giggled again, but from shyness.
“I haven’t seen any more beautiful in the emperor’s stable,” said the traveling dung beetle.
“Now don’t spoil my girls! And don’t talk to them unless you have honorable intentions—but you do, and so I give you my blessing!”
“Hurrah!” all the others shouted, and the dung beetle was engaged. First the engagement and then the wedding. There was no reason to wait.
The next day went very well, the second jogged along fine, but on the third day one had to start thinking about supporting the wife and maybe children.
“I’ve let myself be taken by surprise,” he said, “so I’d better surprise them too.”
And he did. He was gone. Gone all day, gone all night—and his wife was a widow. The other dung beetles said that they had taken a real tramp into the family, and now had the burden of his wife.
“She can become a maiden again,” said her mother. “Be my child again. Shame on that loathsome low-life who deserted her!”
In the meantime, he was on the move. He had sailed across the ditch on a cabbage leaf. In the morning two people came by. They saw the dung beetle, picked him up, and turned and twisted him this way and that. They were both very learned, especially the boy. “Allah sees the black beetle in the black rock on the black mountain. Isn’t that what it says in the Koran?” he asked. Then he translated the dung beetle’s name to Latin and explained its family and habits. The older scholar voted against taking him home since they already had equally good specimens there, he said. The dung beetle didn’t think that was very polite, so he flew out of his hand. He flew a good way, and his wings had dried out. He reached the greenhouse and was able to fly in with the greatest of ease since a window was open. Then he burrowed down into the fresh manure.
“It’s delicious here!” he said.
Soon he fell asleep and dreamed that the emperor’s horse was dead and that Mr. Dung Beetle had gotten its golden shoes and the promise of two more. It was very pleasant, and when the dung beetle woke up, he crept out and looked around. It was magnificent here in the greenhouse! Big fan palms were spread out high above. They looked transparent when the sun shone through them, and below them an abundance of greenery streamed forth, and flowers were shining red as fire, yellow as amber, and as white as newly fallen snow.
“What a magnificent mass of plants! How marvelous it will taste when it rots!” said the dung beetle. “It’s a luscious larder, and I’m sure I must have relatives here. I’ll see if I can track down someone I can associate with. I’m proud and proud of it!” And he thought about his dream of the dead horse and the golden shoes he had gotten.
Suddenly a hand grabbed the dung beetle, and he was squeezed, turned, and twisted about.
The gardener’s little son and his friend were in the greenhouse and had seen the dung beetle and were going to have some fun with it. He was wrapped in a grapevine leaf and put into a warm pants pocket. He crawled and crept around, but was squeezed by the hand of the boy, who went straight off to the big lake at the edge of the garden. Here the dung beetle was placed in an old cracked wooden shoe with a missing instep. A stick was tied on for a mast, and the dung beetle was tethered to it with a woolen thread. Now he was the captain and was going sailing!
It was a really big lake. It seemed like an ocean to the dung beetle, and he became so astonished that he fell over on his back and lay wriggling his legs.
The wooden shoe sailed, and there was a current in the water, but if the boat went out too far, then one of the boys pulled up his pant legs and waded out to get it. But when it was sailing again, someone called the boys—called them sternly—and they hurried off and let the wooden shoe be. It drifted further and further from land, always further out. It was dreadful for the dung beetle. He couldn’t fly because he was tied to the mast.
He was visited by a fly.
“We’re having wonderful weather,” said the fly. “I can rest here and sunbathe too. You have it very comfortable
