THE PARTICULAR BEETLES whose vast empire was the small backyard of a house on Fifth Avenue were astonished one day in May when one of their members, known as a ne’er-do-well, returned after a long absence wearing a shining silver helmet on his head. Perched just above his eyes, it allowed his feelers full play, and was very becoming and impressive, although it seemed a trifle heavy for one unused to wearing anything on his head except an occasional drop of rain. The emperor of the beetles, a plain, unadorned beetle, lived in an overturned box that had once belonged to a dog. There was a damp rug in the box. This palace was looked upon by the beetles as the finest palace in the world.
When the emperor heard the uproar that followed the return of the beetle with the silver helmet, he sent for him. Silver Helmet refused to go to the emperor for the simple reason that his helmet was so high he couldn’t get inside the box that was the emperor’s palace. There was just room for ordinary beetles, without anything on their heads, to crawl into the box. Silver Helmet sent word to the emperor that if the emperor wanted to see him the emperor would have to come outside. This arrogant pronouncement awed the beetles who heard it and when Silver Helmet went on with a long rigmarole about how the helmet had been placed on his head by a goddess—a great and magnificent goddess, who was supremely lovely and benign—they began to believe that the brightly crowned beetle had been divinely ordained to seize the throne from the emperor and rule over them in his stead. Times weren’t any worse in the beetle empire than they were anywhere else at this particular epoch, but the beetles gradually talked themselves into believing that the old emperor was responsible for everything that hadn’t gone exactly right and that the beetle with the silver crown would bring an unheard-of peace and prosperity to the community. There were a few beetles who took no interest one way or the other, because they believed that the world was coming to an end anyway, but the great majority rallied around the silver-crowned beetle and declared him emperor. The dethroned emperor, warned of the revolt, fled just in time, with his wife and seventy-eight children. They escaped to another kingdom simply by crawling through a small hole in the fence, leading to the next yard. The new emperor took up his headquarters under a smaller box in the yard into which he could crawl, helmet and all, and ruled the beetles, in a rather so-so fashion, for several weeks, sitting around in the sun, taking no part in the gathering of food or in anything else, and elaborating on his story of the beautiful goddess who had given him the silver helmet. He asserted that he was immortal and that he was glorified and that he was immune from illness or injury and that the laws which applied to everybody else did not apply to him. The other beetles were deeply impressed and brought him the nicest bits of cereal and other delicacies that they found. He grew so fat that he could squeeze in and out of his palace only by a great effort and still keep his silver crown on.
One day a lady and a small child who lived in the house to which the yard belonged came out into the yard because it was a fine sunshiny day. The little girl, who was four years old, and known as the nastiest child in the neighborhood, saw the silver-crowned beetle and set up a cry. “Oh, Grace,” she cried (for she called her mother Grace), “look, there’s the bug I caught and put my thimble on!” She pointed at the emperor’s magic crown, which was, indeed, a tiny thimble that had been a birthday present to the little girl from her Aunt Clara, who lives in Bronxville. “Well, of all things,” said the child’s mother, and she started for the beetle. It ran and so did all the others, but whereas all the others escaped, the emperor was unable to find any hole or crevice large enough for him to get into hurriedly. The child’s mother killed him with an old broom, used for sweeping up trash, and recovered the thimble. “Now don’t you ever put it on a bug’s head again,” she said. “The idea! What would Aunt Clara think?”
After the mother and child had gone back into the house, the beetles crept cautiously out of their hiding places and looked, in awe, at the dead emperor. He looked like any dead beetle now. Then they sent a delegate into the next yard to ask the old emperor to return, which he did, with his wife and ninety-eight children, and the beetles all settled down to a drab and uneventful life. Of the many morals which attach to the story, the one I like best is something about never accepting a gift of radiance from a woman, of whatever age, for the moment of glory it gives cannot compensate for the disaster which must inevitably follow.