Categories
1860s 1880s Poem

Three Bugs

By Alice Cary with annotations by Karen L. Kilcup

Three Bugs

By Alice Cary
Annotations by Karen L. Kilcup
Painting of insects and flowers, 17th century, Jan van Kessel the Elder. Public domain.
Insects and flowers by Jan van Kessel the Elder, 17th century. Public domain.
 Three little bugs in a basket,
 And hardly room for two!
 And one was yellow, and one was black,
 And one like me, or you.[1]
 The space was small, no doubt, for all;
 But what should three bugs do?
  
 Three little bugs in a basket,
 And hardly crumbs for two;
 And all were selfish in their hearts,
 The same as I or you;
 So the strong ones said, “We will eat the bread,
 And that is what we’ll do.”
  
 Three little bugs in a basket,
 And the beds but two would hold;
 So they all three fell to quarreling—
 And two of the bugs got under the rugs,
 And one was out in the cold!
  
 So he that was left in the basket,
 Without a crumb to chew,
 Or a thread to wrap himself withal,
 When the wind across him blew,
 Pulled one of the rugs from one of the bugs,
 And so the quarrel grew!
  
 And so there was war in the basket,
 Ah, pity, ’tis true, ’tis true!
 But he that was frozen and starved at last,
 A strength from his weakness drew,
 And pulled the rugs from both of the bugs,
 And killed and ate them, too!
  
 Now, when bugs live in a basket,
 Though more than it well can hold,
 It seems to me they had better agree—
 The white, and the black, and the gold—
 And share what comes of the beds and the crumbs, 
 And leave no bug in the cold!
Cary, Alice. “Three Bugs.” First published in The Children’s Hour: A Magazine for the Little Ones (September 1868): 101-2. This version from The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1882), 168-69.

[1] Cary’s bug-narrator assumes that both she and her readers are white.

Contexts

Cary published her poem during a troubling period in the United States. “Three Bugs” first appeared only three years after the Civil War ended, but it reappeared into at least the 1920s. In 1922, Course of Study for United States Indian Schools recommended it as an appropriate text for first-graders. Teacher training schools in the 1910s and 1920s also recommended it as a reading for various primary grades. A 1925 book for Dallas Public Schools includes it as a recitation piece about “peace among neighbors.” What’s remarkable here is how Cary artfully conveys to both children and adults the grim consequences of failing to share resources. The poem indirectly argues for environmental justice.

Resources for Further Study

Environmental Justice / Environmental Racism.” Energy Justice Network. This site has numerous links to sources on EJ, climate justice, environmental racism and classism, and EJ law and policy.

Kilcup, Karen L. Stronger, Truer, Bolder: American Children’s Writing, Nature, and the Environment. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2021.

Skelton, Renee, and Vernice Miller. “The Environmental Justice Movement.” NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). 17 March 2016.

Pedagogy

Analyzing Environmental Justice.” Learning for Justice. Grade levels 6-8, 9-12.  This site includes questions, activities, vocabulary, and much more.

Social Justice, Environmental Justice, and the Elementary Child.” Montessori Services. This site offers general advice for lessons, with a focus on “hope and empowerment.”

Environmental Justice Toolkit.” With project ideas for grades K-12, this site contains numerous concrete examples and provides links to some major community resources.

Contemporary Connections

Numerous contemporary organizations—local, regional, and national—are confronting the challenges of achieving environmental justice. For example, North Carolina, the home state for The Envious Lobster and the birthplace of the U.S. environmental justice movement, has the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, the North Carolina Conservation Network, and the North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, to name only a few. The issues these organizations address range from water contamination by coal ash and factory farming to food deserts and forest destruction.

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