Freddy the Flea

Poor Freddy. He didn't even have one dog. Nor even a cat. Even if he had, it would not have made much difference. Some days it was hard enough to put food on his own table, much less have enough for a dog.

The sea was still rough from the previous night's storm as Freddy walked along the seashore, gathering driftwood to make a fire. Glancing out to sea, he saw something floating in the water. Curious, he jumped into a canoe that he had made from a hollowed out twig and paddled out through the choppy waves.

"Well, I never," Freddy said, arriving at the object. It was a puppy, almost drowned, swimming feebly toward the shore. The puppy was so tired that it couldn't even whimper, much less speak.

"I've got to do something," Freddy said, his brow wrinkled in thought. Looping a rope around one of the dog's front paws, Freddy tied the other end to the canoe and paddled madly toward the shore. Excited at his big chance to have his very own dog, it did not occur to him that a flea his size could do little to help a dog reach shore. Luckily, the wind and waves were doing the work.

It seemed like forever before Freddy's canoe nosed up onto the sandy beach. He sensed that he had little time to get the puppy out of the water before it died.

Tying up his canoe so it wouldn't float away, Freddy ran to the puppy and pulled and tugged with all his might, trying to help the poor, wet thing onto the beach. But Freddy was so small, and the puppy so large, he couldn't budge him. Finally the shivering little dog recovered enough to crawl out of the sea and collapse on the warm sand, almost instantly falling into a deep sleep.

Freddy had no idea what to do. He thought it best to let the puppy rest for a while, but Freddy knew that when the puppy awoke he would be both hungry and thirsty. He would have to get the little dog something to eat, and water to drink. But how?

"I know," said Freddy, talking to himself. "I'll get my cart and see if Andy Ant won't pull it for me so I can find some food."

Once in a while, Freddy made a deal with his friend, Andy, a Fire Ant who lived nearby, to pull his two wheeled cart when he found something too big to carry alone.

Freddy rushed to a field near his house and called out, "Andy! Andy Ant! Are you there?"

"Here I am," came the reply as a reddish-black Fire Ant peeked over the edge of an ant hill. "What do you want?"

As many times as Freddy had seen his friend, he was always struck by his impressive, one quarter of an inch size. Freddy, at under one sixteenth of an inch long, was less than a fourth the size of his ant friend.

"I need you to pull my cart," Freddy said.

"I don't know," Andy said. "I'm pretty busy right now."

Knowing how ants love sweets, Freddy said, "I've got some sugar."

Andy Ant's antennae quivered and he licked his mandibles. "Okay, just give me a minute to carry this last egg down into the hatching."

It seemed like forever until Andy came out. "Hurry. Hurry!" Freddy urged as he tugged at Andy. When they got to the cottage, Freddy threw the special harness on his ant friend and hooked him to the cart.

"Where are we goin'?" Andy asked.

"To the beach," Freddy said. "I found a dog and pulled him out of the sea, but he fell asleep. I know he's going to be hungry and thirsty when he wakes up. I need to take food and water to him."

"Come on, Freddy," Andy said, his expression doubtful. "A dog? How are you going to haul enough in this little, tiny cart to feed a dog? For that matter, where will you get that much food and how do you expect me to pull it?"

Stunned, Freddy hadn't thought about that. Even though the dog was just a pup, he was much bigger than a thousand Freddys or Andys. There was no way they could haul enough food. Unless---?

"What's that sneaky look on your face, Freddy?" Andy asked.

"I just thought of something," Freddy said. "We could go see Laura Ladybug and see if she wouldn't give us enough of that sweet stuff she gets from aphids."

Andy laughed, the bells on his harness jingling. "Boy, are you silly. Ladybugs don't keep aphids, ants do; whole herds of 'em sometimes, kinda like cattle. They milk 'em."

"Milk them? Are you sure?" asked Freddy, looking dubious.

"Of course I'm sure. I visit 'em all the time. When an ant taps an aphid with its antennae, the aphid squeezes out a drop of that sweet stuff. We call it honeydew."

"You think they might give us some honeydew?" Freddy asked.

"We can ask," Andy said.

"We'll need something to carry it in," Freddy said, looking around.

"How about that?" Andy said, using one of his six legs to point toward the barrel under the rain spout at the corner of Freddy's cottage. "It's not as big as a human thimble, but it's better than nothin'."

"Okay, let's try it," Freddy said.

Andy backed the cart up beside the cottage and Freddy grunted and strained, lifting the barrel onto the cart. Jumping into the driver's seat, Freddy urged Andy on as they headed for the Cornfield Ant's home.