Worm Mysteries
By Andrew Smith

"Behold, I show you a great mystery."

Alright, not that great of a mystery, but a mystery all the same. This is a mystery about that most humble of all creatures, the earthworm.

Last year I put in one of those recirculating water ponds that you can get at greenhouses and garden centers. I made a waterfall for it, and lined the edges with mossy rocks, and plugged the thing in and it worked great. In fact, it worked too great, and it sounded just like Niagra Falls, which kept everyone awake, so I had to get a smaller pump. Then it sounded peaceful, so we let it run all summer.

In the fall, earthworms started falling into the pond. I have no idea where they came from, or why they wanted to drown themselves in my pond, but they did by the hundreds. That gave the pond an unmistakably interesting smell, and I had to use the boy's frog net to scoop them out. I figured it was just one of those earthworm things, so I didn't worry about it much. I let the pond freeze solid and then I lifted the whole mess, drowned earthworms and all, out in one solid chunk and set it out in the yard to melt.

Then I forgot about it.

This spring I filled the pond again, and immediately earthworms began to drown themselves in it. Lots of earthworms. Five or six pounds a week, at least. The interesting smell became an unavoidable stench. Then I got used to it. Then I sort of started liking it. To make matters worse, the pump sucked up the drowned earthworms and chopped them into little pieces, then sent them cascading down my mossy waterfall. The pond began to look like a giant cup of ramen noodles.

And all this was just the prelude to the mystery. It made me notice earthworms. It made me start thinking about them, and considering their mysterious, slimy ways.

I've always had a good relationship with earthworms. I think of them primarily as fishing bait, bird food and a useful creature for aerating garden soil. I know of nothing bad, besides how they smell when they're decomposing, that can be said about earthworms. I've always been one of those people that picks them off of wet pavement and throws them over in the dirt so they won't get squashed. They may be just bugs, but they're good bugs. Their reputation is safe with me.

I remember in High School science class a kid got everyone to chip in ten bucks to watch him eat a live nightcrawler. I wished I had thought of that, although I'm not enough of a showman to have pulled it off.
My mom used to sing me a song about earthworms. It went, "Nobody likes me/ everybody hates me/ think I'll go eat worms.
Big, fat, juicy worms/ Long, thin, slimy worms/Think I'll go eat worms."

She had another one that went, "Little birdie in the sky/ dropped some whitewash in my eye/ I'm a big boy, I didn't cry/ I'm just glad that cows don't fly." They don't write kids songs like that anymore.

And now for the mystery of the worms.

I had a 50 gallon white plastic barrel. I cut off the bottom third to make a planter. The other part I used as needed. Sometimes it was a garbage can. Sometimes I turned it upside down and used it for a table. Sometimes I used it to mix potting soil, or cement, or keep fish in. Sometimes it just rolled around the yard in an unsightly manner.

This other half was sitting out in the rain recently. The inside was scoured clean and white. It had been raining constantly of late, so I moseyed over to see how much water had collected in it. And guess what I saw, squirming around in the bottom of three inches of clear water?

Earthworms. A baker's dozen, at least, of fresh, healthy earthworms. That's my mystery, simple though it be. How did they get in there?

Compared to turning water into wine this might seem like a dull, uninspiring mystery, but it's a mystery all the same. It's thirty inches straight up, of smooth, white plastic to the lip of that barrel. Earthworms, as far as I know, don't climb. If they climbed, you'd find them in trees. I don't think I've ever found an earthworm more than an inch off the ground. I have no idea how they got in that barrel.

I went inside and fetched the boy, and his mother, to see the great miracle. At first they were no more impressed than they would be by a Sunday morning TV preacher. Because the truth is, we live in such a constant mystery that usually we're numb to it. But when I asked the boy, who is seven and knows everything, how the worms got in there, all he could do was shrug his shoulders. And his mother did the same. And me too.

When I raise my hand in front of my face and wiggle my index finger, I have no idea how that happens. You can explain it all you want, but that's just the footprints of the beast, not the beast itself. I'm not even sure if the finger moves and the thought follows, or visa-versa, or what. it's just a mystery, mystery, mystery.

And sometimes, all it takes is an earthworm to point the way. Anyway, these ones looked like easy fishing bait, so I scooped them out and put them with the others. I figure I saved a buck and a half, at least. And I got to see the mystery for free.