It was queer that they were always spoken of as Grasshoppers. Their
great-great-great-grandparents were called Locusts, and that was the
family name, but the Cicadas liked that name and wanted it for
themselves, and made such a fuss about it that people began to call them
Seventeen-Year-Locusts; and then because they had to call the real
Locusts something else, they called them Grasshoppers. The Grasshoppers
didn't mind this. They were jolly and noisy, and as they grew older were
sometimes very pompous. And you know what it is to be pompous.
When the farmer was drawing the last loads of hay to his barn and
putting them away in the great mows there, three young Clouded
Grasshopper brothers were frolicking near the wagon. They had tried to
see who could run the fastest, crackle the loudest, spring the highest,
flutter the farthest, and eat the most. There seemed to be nothing more
to do. They couldn't eat another mouthful, the other fellows wouldn't
play with them, they wouldn't play with their sisters, and they were not
having any fun at all.
They were sitting on a hay-cock, watching the wagon as it came nearer
and nearer. The farmer was on top and one of his men was walking beside
it. Whenever they came to a hay-cock the farmer would stop the Horses,
the man would run a long-handled, shining pitch-fork into the hay on the
ground and throw it up to the farmer. Then it would be trampled down on
to the load, the farmer's wife would rake up the scattering hay which
was left on the ground, and that would be thrown up also.
The biggest Clouded Grasshopper said to his brothers, "You dare not sit
still while they put this hay on the load!"
The smallest Clouded Grasshopper said, "I do too!"
The second brother said, "Huh! Guess I dare do anything you do!" He said
it in a rather mean way, and that may have been because he had eaten too
much. Overeating will make any insect cross.
Now every one of them was afraid, but each waited for the others to back
out. While they were waiting, the wagon stopped beside them, the shining
fork was run into the hay, and they were shaken and stood on their heads
and lifted through the air on to the wagon. There they found themselves
all tangled up with hay in the middle of the load. It was dark and they
could hardly breathe. There were a few stems of nettles in the hay, and
they had to crawl away from them. It was no fun at all, and they didn't
talk very much.
When the wagon reached the barn, they were pitched into the mow with
the hay, and then they hopped and fluttered around until they were on
the floor over the Horses' stalls. They sat together on the floor and
wondered how they could ever get back to the meadow. Because they had
come in the middle of the load, they did not know the way.
"Oh!" said they. "Who are those four-legged people over there?"
"Kittens!" sang a Swallow over their heads. "Oh, tittle-ittle-ittle-ee!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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