Momma was getting me ready for a special day at school. My second grade class was to have an Easter party before class was dismissed for the day but class would be over at the regular time. Momma combed my hair, as if it would stay combed for more than a few minutes. She saw to it that I wore my best shorts; I’d much rather have worn long pants like the big boys. She made me put on shoes and socks; it was too early in the season for going barefooted she said. She sent me off down the road, lunch in hand telling me to be a nice boy.

It seemed to me that the teacher would have been better served to have not mentioned that we were to have a little party later in the day. The children seemed restless as if waiting for something momentous to happen. Time dragged on until soon after lunchtime.

“All right class, line up and follow me.” The teacher said as the class followed out of the school building in a line of two and three abreast. A walk of two or three hundred yards led to a park-like clearing at the edge of a woods. It was a grassy area the size of a large back yard. The grass was springtime green with many tufts of longer grass and small shrubs scattered throughout. A small clear and shallow stream flowed alongside the area.

“’Boys and girls, I heard that someone has hidden a big basket of colored eggs somewhere in this grassy place. I’ll pass out some bags for you, then you may start your Easter egg hunt. There are none in the woods. Have fun!” And we were off and hunting.

“I found one” “A green one,” “Here’s a blue one,” ”Yellow,” went up cheers of glee. Even I found two or three for my bag. It seemed the girls were finding most of the eggs. I looked under a little shrub at the edge of the grass, but I didn’t see an egg; instead I saw a snake that seemed much bigger than it was, sunning itself in the warm spring sunshine. I stepped back, the little black snake slithered off into the woods, and I wet my pants. With that, my hunt was over. Hoping that nobody noticed the color difference in my pants leg, I made my way to the little brook, took off my shoes and socks, left them with my eggs and waded in the shallow water. The water flowed over a flat bed of rounded gravel, only about two inches deep and produced a pattern of ripples on the surface. The cool water felt good on my feet and made an interesting pattern as it slid across the gravel. What I didn’t notice was that the sight was also mesmerizing, and the next thing I knew I was sitting on that handsome bed of gravel with the water all around. I didn’t really mean to sit down in the brook, but at least no one would notice a wet streak down my leg.

“Ralph Donald, get out of the water and put your shoes on; it’s time to go back to the school,” said the teacher who didn’t have any kind words for me. All the way back I was thinking about a former outing where I didn’t get wet.

On the side of a ridge near home there was an outcropping of sandstone that formed a bed of sand left under it by erosion of the outcropping. The sand was always dry in its sheltered place, and an ideal place for doodlebugs. Mainly undisturbed by wind and rain the doodlebug lived in his quiet, peaceful corner of the world. I was not content to let him go on so quietly. I crawled in near his abode and called to him and his neighbors, “Doodlebug, doodlebug, stick out your head and I’ll give you a piece bread.” He wouldn’t stick out his head.

Here’s a word of explanation for anyone not familiar with the doodlebug. He is a small bug, maybe an insect, as much as half an inch long. He has strong kicking legs. He borrows in the dry sand and kicks grains of sand away from himself until he has formed a cone-shaped pit about an inch deep around himself. He then resides at the bottom waiting for his dinner to arrive. He is known as an ant lion. Should an ant have the misfortune to wander to the edge of the pit he becomes a meal for the doodlebug. The ant cannot gain traction in the sloping sand and can move only toward his doom at the bottom of the pit.

How could I tell that a doodlebug was at home? Evidently the sound of my voice signaled movement in the sand and alerted him to position himself for a potential dinner. If the voice call didn’t work I could usually draw him out of the sand with a small straw that he would grab onto while I pulled him out of the sand to get a look at him. I always wondered how the doodlebug ever got out of his hole. Maybe he never had the desire to escape. After my doodlebug outing I may have been a bit dirty, as young boys often get but I was dry.

The walk back to the schoolhouse didn’t dry my pants but it was nearly time to go home and I didn’t have long to suffer. On the way home, despite being still wet, I didn’t have to tell Momma about my adventure with the little snake: well, not all of it.