“Well, it is a sight, I assure you,” answered the little cricket. “Did you ever come across my cousin the mole cricket? She is very large and quite clever. She makes a wonderful home with many halls around her nest. She is always on guard too so that no one may touch her precious eggs. Then I have another cousin, who doesn’t dress in brown like me, but is all white. He lives on trees and shrubs and doesn’t eat leaves and grass as we do. He prefers aphides. You can hear him making music on Summer evenings. We crickets seldom fly. We——” The sentence was not finished, for just then a long droning note grew on the air, increasing in volume, until it rose above the meadow chorus. “Oh!” cried Ruth, spying a creature with great bulging eyes and beautiful, transparent wings, glittering with rainbow tints, “There’s a locust! Isn’t he beautiful, Belinda? Maybe he will tell us some things. Oh, Belinda, aren’t we in luck?” [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VII RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS AND CONDITIONS The shrill cicadas, people of the pine, Make their summer lives one ceaseless song. —_Byron._ “A locust, indeed,” said the newcomer, and Ruth could see plainly that he was not pleased. “It does seem to me you should know better than that. Can’t you see I have a _sucking_ beak and not a _biting_ one, like the grasshopper tribe? Besides, my music isn’t made like theirs. No faint, fiddly squeak for me, but a fine sound of drums.” “I think I’ll move on,” said Mr. Grasshopper, and Ruth could see that he was quite angry. She turned to look at the cricket, but he was far across the field, fiddling to his mate. “I wish you wouldn’t go,” she said to the grasshopper. “You have been so nice to me and I have learned ever so much from you.” “Oh, I dare say,” was the answer. “More than you will learn from some people I could mention, but I really must leave you. My mate wants me.” And a flying leap carried him quite away. “There, we are rid of the old grandfather,” said the cicada, “and now what can I do for you?” “Tell me your real name if it is not locust,” answered Ruth. “It certainly is not locust. I’ve been called a harvest fly, though I am not a fly either. I’m a cicada, and nothing else, and I belong to the order of bugs.” “And what kind of tera is it?”