THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FLY
The Autobiography of a Fly (From the Florida Health Notes) THE FIRST thing I remember is before I had any legs or wings and was wiggling and squirming in a nice warm bed of horse manure, where I...
...Relief came soon and my skin came off, and I ate some more manure and enjoyed it...
...Pretty soon the woman came in and a man I had never seen before...
...When I awoke I was kicking and struggling out in a very dry, hard skin, and after freeing myself I found I was in the open air and had legs and wings and looked and felt very differently than when I went to sleep...
...However, I'm only a fly...
...The Autobiography of a Fly (From the Florida Health Notes) THE FIRST thing I remember is before I had any legs or wings and was wiggling and squirming in a nice warm bed of horse manure, where I spent my time eating and drinking the food about me...
...It is fun to wade around in your food and find so much that you hardly know where to begin...
...They were swarming on the butter, but I had eaten enough that day, and before long it got dark and I was tired, so I went to sleep on the edge of a glass, after scraping off as much dough as I could...
...Day after day went by...
...Two or three times a day we would get a whiff of that lovely smell from the kitchen and then we would have a race to see which of us would get there first...
...She hit me, too, but 1 landed near the edge and struggled out and flew away, but she caught the other two and pinched them and threw them on the floor, and went on mixing her dough, apparently without a thought that she had killed two of my companions...
...They went over and looked at the child and felt him, and the man asked a lot of questions, and the woman seemed very worried...
...to the stable...
...The edge of a glass is a very nice thing to wipe your feet on...
...He was covered up with a sheet, so I went out again...
...I got rid of some more manure there, too, for the dough was sticky and pulled it, off my feet...
...It came from an open window, so in I flew...
...The weather is getting cooler all the time, and I have trouble waking up in the mornings and feel stiff and lazy and don't want to eat much...
...In a few days more my skin again got too tight, and off it came, and then I went to sleep for I don't know how long...
...but the child rolled over, so I flew over to a glass of water on a table and drank some...
...I went over and walked across his lips, and it was warm and nice, and I wiped my feet and stretched my wings and almost went to sleep myself...
...Two got hit and fell right in the middle...
...Up to this time I had eaten nothing but manure, but I soon found out that there were other things just as good...
...I saw some flies on fly paper once, and it's no place for me...
...The next day some people came to the house and a lot of carriages, and I guess they took the child away, for I have never seen him since...
...Sometimes one got killed, but we hadn't time to be sorry long, we were so busy eating and wiping our feet and investigating things...
...She asked him what the trouble was, and he looked at the child again and then out the window toward the stable and around the room at us...
...The woman would slap at us and the child chased us, but only a few got caught, and we enjoyed the fun...
...it must have been awfully cold, and two or three had their feet so tangled up in the butter that, they couldn't get away, and the number of little germs that they had wiped off was enormous...
...Several of us were drinking when the woman suddenly put out her hand in our direction, and we all made a jump...
...Wet things are very pleasant for a time, but my feet get covered with little pieces of food and things that wiggle around and tickle me, so I like to wipe them off on a nice white napkin or tablecloth, and then...
...Mere I nearly lost my life, and if I had not been young and active, I am sure I would never have escaped...
...What in the world did we have to do with it...
...Nearby there was a bowl of milk which smelled good, so I flew over and took a drink...
...There were a. lot of other flies about, and one that was too busy eating to see his danger got rolled up in the dough and I never saw him again, so I was careful and flew in and out and got a mouthful each time...
...I don't go much farther away from the kitchen now than the garbage can on the porch, and between that and the kitchen I find all I need to eat, and there is always something to wipe my feet on when they get too heavy with food—a piece of bread or cake, a plate or a fork or a spoon, and I'm sure nobody minds...
...too many flies...
...One poor fly had drowned in the ice water...
...I found a closet near the kitchen, and I think I will soon go in there and sleep until next spring, as it's too cold outside...
...I get around better...
...for I went in and out, every day and walked over the child and found lots to eat about him and the bed, and between this room and the kitchen and the stable we always had plenty to eat...
...I spent quite a while here and then flew out in the sunshine where the white clothes were hanging on a line and walked over the napkins for a while...
...we spent part of our time in the house, and then we would fly to the manure pile and the little building back of it, and we lived on the fat of the land...
...I stayed in that kitchen a long time and then went into another room where there was not so much to eat, as I was not very hungry...
...I'm afraid I'm a glutton...
...I was thirsty, so tried my wings for the first time and flew to a puddle by the manure pile and took a long drink, after which I felt much better...
...I guess people like germs and manure and things just as much as I do, for the baby drank all the milk...
...I saw a lot of other flies, big and little, around a small building not far from the manure pile, so I flew over and had a feast...
...After a while I began to feel uncomfortable and found that I had grown too big for my skin...
...One morning when I went into the room I couldn't find the child...
...Here I found a lot of flies and a table set...
...While I was enjoying the sun I smelled the most delightful smell that had ever come to me...
...Things were smoking on a stove and a woman was mixing up some soft white stuff on a table...
...She must have forgotten about the screens...
...After some weeks of this life, I flew away up in the air one morning and went into a window 1 had not seen before and found the child asleep on the bed...
...The woman didn't seem to understand, either, but after a while she said something about screens and fly paper, and then I flew out...
...and then he said something that sounded very funny to me—"typhoid fever...
...In the morning the man and woman and a child came in to eat, and the woman poured out a glassful of milk for the child—the glass I had slept on...
Vol. 5 • May 1913 • No. 19
