Fire flies

Ah summer! No school, and no cold weather. We would roam the neighbor doing what ever we wanted to do. Late in the evening, just before I had to go to bed, the sun would go down and it would begin to get dark. The air would be hot and humid, but a little cooler than the heat of the day. Then the fireflies would come out. When I first saw the fireflies I was afraid they would burn me like hot coals. "No, look Tink!" said James. "I can catch one in my hands, and it doesn't burn!" He demonstrated by quickly grabbing at a firefly.

"Ah, you don't really have one in your hands," I said in disbelief. Then he opened his hands and I saw one fly out of his hands. "Hey, James, how did you do that?" He patiently showed me how to catch a firefly. With a lot of effort I was finally able to catch one by myself. It tickled my hand. "How come they are not hot?" I wanted to know.

"I think it is hot, but just a little bit. They fly around a lot and cool off." We thought it would be a good idea to catch a lot of them and put them in a glass jar. Then we could have a light in our bedroom all night long. It wasn't easy getting more than one firefly in the jar. They wanted to fly out when we opened the lid. We noticed that they didn't glow all the time after we caught them. That night we had the eerie blue-green glow of the fire flies to light the room. Then I quickly fell asleep. To my great disappointment the fireflies were dead in the morning.