The Pilgrimage: Part 2

If you haven't read Part One, and would like to see a picture of The Umbrella, follow the link before you continue.

The Umbrella floated along on a little lake current, and bobbed just far enough out into the water. It hadn't roamed so far that it wouldn't be able to get back to the edge, but it wasn't so close that just anyone could reach out and grab it. In short, it was in exactly the sort of place that would give an umbrella the most joy.

It floated for several hours in this way, but by the time the rain had stopped, it was gently nudging the reedy shoreline, where moss and sticks and a little boy's lost boot all swirled together looking brown and green and striped red. (Because little boys' boots are supposed to have red stripes, aren't they?)

Just as The Umbrella was beginning to get comfortable, and having quite a cozy chat with the red boot, another of those little winds came up. The Umbrella always felt quite undignified in the wind. In rain and sun and clouds he was proud and noble and strong, but in the wind, he couldn't make himself behave no matter how hard he tried.

This particular wind lifted him up just a bit, so that he floated with three big bumps right up into the grass around the lake, and tipped crazily up on his side, with his black handle sticking out like a big, pointing finger toward the other side of the lake.

What the Umbrella didn't know, but was soon to learn, as I will tell you if you will just be patient, was that hidden under his side was a very small ant den, and in the doorway of that ant den, was one very small ant.

The ant's name was Maximus. That is the sort of name that makes a little fellow either very bold, or very embarrassed, and today, Maximus was feeling embarrassed. He was feeling quite useless, which means that he didn't think he knew how to do anything important. He was not as strong as he might have been, and not as clever as perhaps he should have been, and not as friendly as he could have been, if he weren't so worried about being strong and clever.

When the other ants talked to Maximus, he felt like they were probably being nice to him because he was so little, and his name was Maximus. Or maybe they were really just making fun of him, because he was so little, and his name was Maximus.

In any case, Maximus was just settling into a good bit of "feeling sorry" when he saw, coming out of the sky, a big white...thing. A Thing! A White Thing! It covered up the clouds and blue and the trees and all the big, big people with their big, clumsy feet. It covered everything, in fact, and all the other ants down in the den didn't know anything at all about the White Thing!

Maximus was so excited, he didn't know whether to rush back down the hole and tell everyone, because that would be a very important thing to do, or to rush out into the grass and get a better look at the White Thing, because that would be a very brave thing to do.

In the end, he decided that, with a name like Maximus, brave was the only option. So he gathered all the courage in his six trembling, little legs, and he waved his antennae in an especially heroic manner, and he walked slowly out of the hole, into the grass and out from under The Umbrella.