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~The Story of the Dragonfly~
Down
below the surface of a
quiet pond lived a little colony of water bugs. They were a
happy colony,
living far away from the sun. For many months they were
very busy,
scurrying over the soft mud on the bottom of the pond.
They did notice
that every once in a while one of their colony seemed to
lose interest in
going about with its friends. Clinging to the stem of a pond
lily, it
gradually moved out of sight and was seen no
more. "Look!"
said one of
the water bugs to another. "One of our colony is climbing
up the lily
stalk. Where do you suppose she is going?" Up, up, up it
went slowly.
Even as they watched, the water bug disappeared from
sight. Its friends
waited and waited but it didn't return. "That's funny!" said
one
water bug to another. "Wasn't she happy here?" asked a
second
water bug. "Where do you suppose she went?" wondered
a third. No
one had an answer. They were greatly
puzzled. Finally
one of the water bugs, a
leader in the colony, gathered its friends together. "I have
an idea.
The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk must
promise to come back
and tell us where he or she went and why." "We promise,"
they said solemnly. One
spring day, not long after,
the very water bug who had suggested the plan found
himself climbing up
the lily stalk. Up, up, up he went. Before he knew what
was happening, he
had broken through the surface of the water, and fallen
onto the broad,
green lily pad above. When he
awoke, he looked about
with surprise. He couldn't believe what he saw. A startling
change had
come to his old body. His movement revealed four silver
wings and a long
tail. Even as he struggled, he felt an impulse to move his
wings. The
warmth of the sun soon dried the moisture from the new
body. He moved his
wings again and suddenly found himself up above the
water. He had become a
dragonfly. Swooping
and dipping in great
curves, he flew through the air. He felt exhilarated in the
new
atmosphere. By and by, the new dragonfly lighted happily
on a lily pad to
rest. Then it was that he chanced to look below to the
bottom of the pond.
Why, he was right above his old friends, the water bugs!
There they were,
scurrying about, just as he had been doing some time
before. Then the
dragonfly remembered the promise: "The next one of us
who climbs up
the lily stalk will come back and tell where he or she went
and why." Without
thinking, the dragonfly
darted down. Suddenly he hit the surface of the water and
bounced away.
Now that he was a dragonfly, he could no longer go into
the water. "I
can't return!" he said in dismay. "At least I tried, but I can't
keep my promise. Even if I could go back, not one
of the water bugs
would know me in my new body. I guess I'll just have to
wait until they
become dragonflies too. Then they'll understand what
happened to me, and
where I went."
 And the dragonfly winged off happily into its wonderful new world of sun and air!!!
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