Kiddie Took His New Coat From the Twig (Page 59)Kiddie Took His New Coat From the Twig(Page 59)
"What's that?" Kiddie Katydid asked.
"An overcoat, fashioned expressly for you by the finest tailor in Pleasant Valley!" said Mr. Frog very proudly.
"You're exceedingly kind, I'm sure," said Kiddie. And he was about to jump down and slip into the coat when he noticed that Mr. Frog had an extremely wide mouth. . . . Suppose, after slipping into the coat, he should find himself slipping down the tailor's throat?
"Just hang the coat on a twig and I'll get into it a little later," Kiddie Katydid suggested.
"I see!" Mr. Frog cried. "That's yourway of accepting a gift. And I wouldn't dream of quarreling with you about that. So I'll hang the coat right here and go back to the watering-trough to wet my feet. While I'm gone you can try the coat on, and tell me how you like it when I come back."
"I hope it's a green one!" said Kiddie Katydid somewhat anxiously. "For if it isn't green, I couldn't wear it, you know. I always wear green. It's my favorite color."
"Ah! Trust me not to make a mistake!" Mr. Frog chuckled happily. And then he withdrew. But he could not help pausing for a moment, to look back and watch, while Kiddie sprang down from his tree and took his new coat from the twig on which the tailor had hung it.
"Now—" said Mr. Frog, when he had returned from the watering-trough—"now tell me, how do you like the overcoat I made for you?"
And Kiddie Katydid, safe in his tree once more, and snugly buttoned in Mr. Frog's gift, replied that it was the finest garment he had ever owned in all his life.
"Good!" said Mr. Frog. "And I dare say you've had many overcoats in your time, too."
Kiddie Katydid did not correct Mr. Frog's mistake. To tell the truth, he had never before had an overcoat on his back.
"I've come here to-night to deliver animportant message to you," Mr. Frog went on. "And thinking the weather might be cooler than you liked, I made you that fine coat so you could stay out here in your tree and listen to what I have to tell you. . . . I hear—" he said—"I hear that you're a musician."
"Yes!" said Kiddie Katydid—for he knew well enough that Freddie Firefly could not have kept the secret.
"I hear that you're a fiddler," Mr. Frog added.
"Why, no! I've never played the fiddle!" Kiddie Katydid exclaimed. "I don't know how to do that."
"Well, how do you know that you can't, if you've never tried?" Mr. Frog retorted. "If you can playKaty did, Katy did; she did, she did, by rubbing your wing covers together, there's no knowing what you could do with a real fiddle and bow."
"That's true," Kiddie admitted. "I never thought of that."
"Well," said Mr. Frog, who appeared greatly pleased with himself, "anyhow, I want you to join our singing society. Perhaps you've heard me and my friends over in the swamp. Almost every night we have a singing party there. And if you'll only agree to fiddle for us, while we sing, I venture to say that we'll have Farmer Green getting up out of his bed to listen to us."
Naturally, the invitation pleased Kiddie Katydid. But for all that, he shook his head slowly.
"I'm afraid I'm too shy," he told Mr. Frog. "I like to stay hidden among the leaves, where people can't see me."
"That'll be all right!" Mr. Frog assured him. "You can hide in some bush near-by, where we can't look at you."
But still Kiddie Katydid wouldn't accept the invitation. Although Mr. Frog teased and teased, all he would say was that he would think the matter over.
"Promise me this, at least—" Mr. Frog finally said—"promise me that you won't agree to make music for anybody else! Now that people know you're musical, they'll be asking you to play in an orchestra, or a band, or a fife-and-drum corps, or something. But I've invited you first, and if you oblige anybody it ought to be me—especially after I've given you that beautiful warm overcoat." The tailor looked upwards into the tree so beseechingly that Kiddie Katydid hadn't the heart to refuse his request.
"I'll promise that," he said.
"Hurrah!" cried Mr. Frog, opening his mouth so widely that Kiddie Katydid couldn't help shuddering at the sight.
And then Mr. Frog leaped into the air three times. And each time that he leaped, he struck his heels together three times, just to show how happy he was.
Then, with a hearty "Good night!" he turned away and went skipping off.
And Kiddie Katydid, making his curious music in the top of the maple tree, kept thinking that the tailor was one of the oddest chaps he had ever seen.
He did wish, too, that Mr. Frog had a smaller mouth.
Old Mr. Crow flew into a terrible rage when he found, the next morning, that his committee had not called on Kiddie Katydid during the night. And when Chirpy Cricket told him that the weather was too cold for anybody to stay out late, Mr. Crow said "Nonsense! What about Mr. Frog?"
That was a hard question to answer. And Chirpy Cricket was so afraid of angry Mr. Crow that he promptly hid himself among the roots of a clump of grass.
Now, the fact that Mr. Frog had been away from his shop the night before set Mr. Crow to worrying.
"That slippery tailor has been up to some mischief," Mr. Crow declared. "And if he has played a trick on me I'll never hear the last of it."
The old gentleman was so disturbed that he quite lost his appetite during the rest of the day. And he moped and groaned about, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. One thing that made him especially uneasy was the fact that when he called on Mr. Frog he found the tailor in a gayer mood than he had ever known him to be in.
Mr. Frog bounded about his shop like a rubber ball. And the worst of it was, hewouldsing, although Mr. Crow begged him, with tears in his eyes, to stop.
"What's the matter?" Mr. Frog asked him. "Don't you like my voice? Or is it the songs I sing? I've a new one that I'd like to sing for you. It's about one ofthe Katydid family; and I'm sure you'll enjoy hearing it."
But Mr. Crow wouldn't stay there any longer. With a loud squawk of rage he scurried away. He was sure, then, that Mr. Frog had tricked him.
That night Mr. Crow's committee called on Kiddie Katydid. It was a fine, warm, moonlight night. And as they drew near Farmer Green's place they could hear Kiddie's shrill music, even while they were still a quarter of a mile away.
"He plays better than ever," said Freddie Firefly. "I wish Mr. Crow could hear him." And they hurried on, believing that everything was going to turn out all right, in the end.
"Mr. Crow will be sorry, to-morrow, that he scolded us," said Chirpy Cricket.
But the committee met with a sad disappointment. When they invited KiddieKatydid to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra he told them that he couldn't.
"Why not?" Freddie Firefly asked.
"I've promised somebody that I wouldn't," Kiddie said.
And though they pressed him for an explanation, he wouldn't give them any. He wouldn't say another word.
It was a downcast company that left Farmer Green's front yard. And they quarreled among themselves, too, before they parted. For there wasn't one of them that was willing to tell Mr. Crow that Kiddie had declined his invitation.
But they finally hit upon a plan that suited everybody. They agreed to get Mr. Crow's cousin, Jasper Jay, to break the news gently to the old gentleman.
It turned out that Jasper was delighted to undertake the task. He hoped that Mr. Crow would fly into a passion when heheard the sad tale. And Jasper was not disappointed. For old Mr. Crow was furious.
"It's the work of that sly rascal, Mr. Frog!" he squalled. "He must have called on Kiddie Katydid and hoodwinked him somehow. . . . I'd like to know what he said."
But Mr. Crow never found that out. So Kiddie Katydid had another secret, which was known only to himself and Mr. Frog.
And Mr. Frog wouldn't tell anybody, because he preferred to tease Mr. Crow.
And Kiddie Katydid wouldn't tell anybody, because he liked secrets. So when people tried to pry into the affair, he just folded his wings tightly over himself—and said nothing.
Of course, Kiddie Katydid was not always to be found in his favorite nook among the trees in Farmer Green's front yard. Quite often he went skipping about from tree to tree or from bush to bush, sometimes flying and sometimes leaping. It really made little difference to him which mode of travel he used. And he never stopped to think how lucky he was to be able to move so spryly with the help of either his legs or his wings. He took his good fortune as a matter of course.
There was Mr. Frog! He was a famous jumper; but he couldn't fly. And therewas Mr. Nighthawk! He was a skillful flier; but he couldn't jump.
Such thoughts, however, never entered Kiddie Katydid's head. He went cheerfully about his business—which waseating, principally—and jumped or flew as the mood seized him. Indeed, if it hadn't been for that queer fellow,BenjaminBat, probably Kiddie never would have realized just what he could—or couldn't—do.
Since Benjamin was another night-prowler like himself, Kiddie Katydid saw him often. It seemed to Kiddie that he could scarcely ever gaze at the full moon without catching sight of Benjamin Bat's dusky shape flitting jerkily across the great, round, yellow disk.
When Benjamin was astir in the neighborhood, Kiddie Katydid lay low—or high—in his favorite tree-top. At least, he kept very still until the night was nearlygone, to give Benjamin Bat plenty of time to satisfy his hunger. For Kiddie found Benjamin Bat a much more agreeable companion when he had eaten his fill. Early in the evening, soon after he had waked up, Benjamin was positively ferocious. But the more he ate, the pleasanter he grew. And by the time faint streaks of light began to show in the east he could smile and crack a joke as easily as anybody else.
Well, late one night—or early one morning—Kiddie Katydid and Benjamin Bat were enjoying a chat in the tree-tops, when Benjamin put a new idea into Kiddie's head.
"We ought to have some sports right here in Farmer Green's yard," he suggested. "You're such a fine jumper that you could try your skill against Mr. Frog. And you're such a fine flier that you andFreddie Firefly ought to have a race. . . . I'd suggest—" he added—"I'd suggest that the sports take place after dark, almost any evening."
But Kiddie Katydid spoke up quickly and said that he wouldn't care to join in the fun until the night was almost gone. He said he was sure he could jump and fly better at that time. And that was quite true, because he knew that if Mr. Bat swallowed him early in the evening he wouldn't be able to take any part in the sports.
"Very well, then!" Benjamin Bat replied. "But it will be the worst possible time for me."
"What do you mean?" Kiddie Katydid inquired. "Do you expect to enter any of the contests?"
"Oh, yes!" said Benjamin. "I'm going to hang by my heels from the limb of atree. And since I'm never so heavy early in the evening, before I've had a chance to eat much, I'd prefer to have the sports begin soon after dark."
But Kiddie Katydid said that there was no doubt Benjamin Bat would win in the sport of hanging head downward by his heels. And he told Benjamin not to worry.
When the night of the races and other sports finally came, a great crowd began to gather about Farmer Green's place soon after dark. Although Benjamin Bat had told people that the fun wasn't going to begin until almost morning, they were all so excited that they couldn't wait for the night to pass.
They lingered around the dooryard and talked so loudly that they actually disturbed the household. Farmer Green was even tempted to get up and shut his window, he found it so hard to go to sleep.
The noisiest of all the gathering was Mr. Frog, the tailor, who lived over by the creek.
He had a great deal to say about everything; and it soon became plain to everyone that he was trying to manage the whole affair.
Mr. Frog objected to every arrangement that Benjamin Bat had made. When he learned that he was expected to enter a jumping contest with Kiddie Katydid he exclaimed that he and Kiddie were such good friends that he hated the thought of trying to beat Kiddie at jumping.
"Kiddie might feel bad," said Mr. Frog. "People might laugh at him because I won."
"Don't you worry about me!" Kiddie Katydid called out.
"Where are you?" asked Mr. Frog, looking all around. "I can hear you, but I can't see you."
But Kiddie Katydid refused to show himself.
He preferred, for the time being, to remain safely hidden among the leaves, where he could listen to what people said—and talk to them when he wanted to.
"Wouldn't you prefer some other sort of contest?" Mr. Frog then asked him. "Now, there's swimming! We could swim in the watering-trough, or the duck pond. And if I beat you, you could stick your head under water, so you wouldn't hear what people said. Don't you think that's a good idea?"
"Goodness, no!" cried Kiddie. "I'd drown myself in no time."
"Dear me!" said Mr. Frog. "I never thought of that."
And then everybody laughed so loudly at him that he hurried off to the watering-trough to dive under water, and stay there until he was sure that his remarks had been forgotten.
Meanwhile Benjamin Bat was worrying. He couldn't find anybody who was willing to try the sport of hanging head downward by his heels. He asked Kiddie Katydid; and Kiddie declined flatly to do any such thing.
Now, since Benjamin had not yet dined, he was very short-tempered. And he grew angry at once.
"What's the matter?" he sneered. "Don't you know how to do an easy trick like that? If I could see you—" he declared, peering among the maple leaves—"if I could see you I'd show you how it feels to hang beneath a limb."
Kiddie Katydid said no word in reply. He knew well enough what Benjamin Bat meant. Benjamin wanted to eat him! And he wished that Benjamin would go away and get a good meal somewhere before he came back again.
As the hours sped by and the moon at last crossed the sky and dropped out of sight, Kiddie Katydid saw that there was going to be trouble.
He was worried about Benjamin Bat. Early in the evening Benjamin had begun to abuse Mr. Frog. And he was so busy doing that that he wouldn't take the time to go away and snatch even a bite to eat.
Naturally, Benjamin's temper grew worse as the night lengthened. And Kiddie Katydid had to admit to himself that he would be most unwise if he did any jumping or flying just then. For Benjamin Bat was in so fierce a humor that he was ready to snap at anybody who was smaller than he was. All the tiny flying folk gave him a wide berth. And it began to look as if he were going to spoil the night's fun.
But all the while Mr. Frog never once lost his temper. Even when Benjamin Bat called him a long-legged, flat-headed, paddle-footed meddler, Mr. Frog only smiled and turned a few somersaults backward.
"What's the matter with you?" Benjamin Bat asked him at last. "Can't you speak?"
"Certainly! Certainly!" Mr. Frog said then. "I've been trying to think of some way to prevent so much quarreling. It hardly seems fair to Kiddie Katydid—this uproar right in his dooryard. And since you are the one that's making the greatest disturbance, I'd suggest that you go away and leave us to enjoy the rest of the night in peace."
"I'll do nothing of the kind!" Benjamin Bat screamed. "This ismyparty. I thought of it in the first place. And I'm going to stay here until dawn."
"Very well! Then the rest of us will leave at once," Mr. Frog told him. And calling good-by to all his friends, Mr. Frog flopped himself briskly away.
The smaller folk, too, vanished as if by magic. Though Benjamin Bat watched sharply, he didn't even see Freddie Firefly when he slipped away.
"That's strange!" thought Benjamin. "He must have put out his light, to fool me. But I don't care, because Kiddie Katydid is hidden somewhere in this tree. And I'm going to find him—for I'm terribly hungry."
So Benjamin began flying in and out among the maple branches. Nobody but he could have twisted and turned in such a helter-skelter fashion. It made Kiddie Katydid almost dizzy just to watch him. But Kiddie didn't take his eyes off Benjamin, because he intended to jump—and jump fast and far—in case Benjamin should spy him.
Now, although the Bat family was able to see in the dark as well as Farmer Green's cat could, Benjamin failed to find Kiddie Katydid anywhere. Crouching motionless upon a leaf, and dressed all in green, Kiddie Katydid was almost invisible. But if he had moved the least bit, Benjamin Bat would have found him out.
Looking only for a tiny green figure among the green leaves, Benjamin Bat paid no attention to the grayish branches of the tree. He was really strangely careless. Quite unsuspected by him, while he was wrangling with Mr. Frog, the cat had crept out of the woodshed and stolen softly into that very tree, where she lay motionless along a limb. She had come out upon an early morning hunt for birds.
She was a fierce old cat. There was nothing, almost, that she wasn't ready and willing to fight. Even old dog Spot had learned to shun her. And now she waited patiently until Benjamin Bat should come within reach of her quick paws.
That stupid, blundering fellow bumped squarely into her at last. And how he escaped is still a mystery. The old cat always claimed that when she found Benjamin wasn't a bird she was so surprised that she let him go. And as for Benjamin himself, he never would discuss his adventure with anybody. Kiddie Katydid was the only other one who saw what happened. But he was so frightened at the time that he only knew that Benjamin Bat tore away toward the swamp as if a thousand cats were following him. And people do say that for some time afterward, Kiddie Katydid shrilled a slightly different ditty. It wasKitty did, Kitty did; she did, she did!
But when Mr. Frog mentioned that news, with a laugh, to Benjamin Bat, over in the swamp, Benjamin only said, "Stuff and nonsense!"
Yet he looked most uncomfortable.
Kiddie Katydid had a neighbor who was a good deal like him. Indeed, a careless person had to look sharply to discover much difference between them. But there was a difference. There was, especially, a certain way in which one could always tell them apart. One had only to take the trouble to look at their horns—or feelers. For Kiddie Katydid had horns as long—or longer—than he was. But his neighbor, who was known as Leaper the Locust, wore his horns quite short.
Although they saw each other often, Kiddie and this neighbor of his were not on the best of terms. The trouble was simply this: they couldn't agree on thequestion of horns. Whenever they met they were sure to have a most unpleasant dispute before they parted.
Really, their quarrels were as bad as those that Jimmy Rabbit and Frisky Squirrel once had over the matter of tails. And many of the field folk said it was a shame that the Grasshoppers' trouble couldn't be settled somehow.
Strange as it may seem, that remark always made Leaper the Locust terribly angry. And it enraged Kiddie Katydid as did nothing else.
The difficulty was that the field people—as well as Farmer Green's whole family—had fallen into the lazy habit of calling those two by the same name. They spoke of Kiddie Katydid as "the Long-horned Grasshopper," while they termed his neighbor "the Short-horned Grasshopper."
"It's bad enough to look somewhat likeLeaper the Locust, without being tagged with the name of Grasshopper, along with him," Kiddie Katydid spluttered.
"Honestly, I'm tempted to move away from this neighborhood," Leaper the Locust began to tell everyone he met. "If that chap would only trim his horns to the proper length I wouldn't mind it so much. But he's actually proud of them. He's always waving them over his head, so people will notice them."
They both declared—Kiddie Katydid and Leaper the Locust—that they couldn't abide the name "Grasshopper." And they took pains to warn people in the neighborhood that they wouldn't answer to that name, no matter how loudly anyone might shout it at them.
After that a few of their neighbors took great delight in crying "Grasshopper! Grasshopper!" whenever one of the twohappened to be within hearing. But no matter which of them it might be—whether Leaper the Locust or Kiddie Katydid—he pretended not to hear, and went right on eating.
But at last something happened that made both those jumpy gentlemen change their minds. From not wanting to be called Grasshoppers, they decided suddenly that they liked the name. And each claimed that the other had no right to it.
This odd state of affairs arose when they learned that a stranger had come into the valley bearing a message marked "For Mr. Grasshopper."
"That's for me!" Kiddie Katydid cried, as soon as he heard the news.
"You're mistaken!" Leaper the Locust snapped. "The message is clearly intended for me. And I shan't let anybody else open it."
Kiddie Katydid and Leaper the Locust quarreled so loudly that they soon drew a crowd around them.
Kiddie Faced Leaper the Locust (Page 90)Kiddie Faced Leaper the Locust(Page 90)
"That message for 'Mr. Grasshopper' is certainly meant for me," Kiddie insisted. "You know yourself how you have objected to being called by the name of 'Grasshopper.' Why, only last night you refused to stop when Freddie Firefly shouted it after you."
"And you—" cried Leaper the Locust—"you paid no attention when Chirpy Cricket went up to you just as the moon rose this evening and said, 'How-dy do,Mr. Grasshopper!' right in your ear. You have no right to open the message. And I promise you that I shall make trouble for you if you don't mind your own affairs."
"Well, well—what's all this row about, anyhow?" asked a strange voice. It was a newcomer in Pleasant Valley who had just spoken. He elbowed his way briskly through the throng until he reached the center of it, where Kiddie and Leaper the Locust faced each other angrily. People noticed that the stranger looked as if he had travelled a long distance. And he had a mail-pouch slung over his back. Furthermore, he was enough like Kiddie and Leaper to be a cousin of either one of them.
A person couldn't see his horns, on account of the hat that he wore.
When this traveller asked about the dispute, everybody hastened to explain the quarrel to him.
He listened carefully, and when he had heard the whole story he said:
"This message—do you know where it is? Do you know who has it now?"
"No!" Leaper the Locust cried, while Kiddie Katydid echoed the word.
"Ah! I thought not!" said the stranger, "I thought not, because I have it in this mail-bag. And now I must confess that I'm puzzled myself; for I don't know which one it's intended for." And he pulled off his hat and began fanning himself with it.
It was perfectly plain to everyone that he was sadly perplexed.
Then Leaper the Locust gave a great shout.
"You're a Short-horn!" he exclaimed. "It can't be that you would have a message for a person with horns likehis!" He pointed a scornful finger at poor Kiddie Katydid.
One glance at the stranger's head—now that he had removed his hat—told everybody that Leaper the Locust was not mistaken.
The stranger's hornswereshort. There was no denying that fact.
"I believe you must be the Mr. Grasshopper I'm looking for," said the stranger.
Then he put his hand inside his mail-pouch and pulled out a letter.
Leaper the Locust made a sudden jump for the message. But he was so eager that he sprang too far. He sailed far over the stranger's head and landed some distance away.
"Hullo! He doesn't want it!" said the stranger. "It must be foryou!" And heshoved the message into Kiddie Katydid's willing hands.
Almost immediately Leaper the Locust jumped back again.
But of course he was too late.
Leaper the Locust was a rude fellow. He actually tried to snatch the message out of Kiddie Katydid's hands. But the stranger promptly bowled him over and told him sternly to be off.
Leaper did not dare disobey. So he hurried away. But after a few moments he came sailing back again and hung on the outskirts of the crowd, to see what was going on.
He soon discovered that there was some difficulty. Kiddie Katydid had torn open the message; and now he turned it over and over, wondering what it said—for totell the truth, he couldn't read a single word.
"Ah!" the stranger remarked presently. "I see what your trouble is. You haven't your spectacles on!"
He was a polite person—that stranger. He knew better than to suggest that a body didn't know his letters!
"Let me help you!" he continued. And taking the message from Kiddie Katydid, he held it upside down and began reciting in a sing-song voice:
Dear Mr. Grasshopper,in Pleasant Valley——Though you do not know me, I am a distant cousin of yours; and I am now on my way to your neighborhood, with my family. Not being acquainted in your part of the country, I am sending you this message with the hope that you will be ready to welcome us when we arrive.Please see that there's a plenty to eat!
Though you do not know me, I am a distant cousin of yours; and I am now on my way to your neighborhood, with my family. Not being acquainted in your part of the country, I am sending you this message with the hope that you will be ready to welcome us when we arrive.Please see that there's a plenty to eat!
"That's odd!" Kiddie Katydid exclaimed, after the stranger had finished. "Won't you please read that once more? I want to be sure that I understand it."
Thereupon the travel-worn messenger repeated the contents of the letter. And this time he held it with the back towards him, so that he couldn't see the writing at all. Like Kiddie Katydid, he didn't know how to read a word. But luckily he had learned the message by heart before starting on his journey.
"What's my cousin's name?" Kiddie Katydid asked him abruptly. "Hasn't he signed the message?"
"I'm afraid he forgot to do that," the stranger muttered. "No doubt he wantsto surprise you," he added, as he handed the letter back to Kiddie.
"This cousin of mine—is he a Long-horn or a Short-horn?" Kiddie Katydid inquired.
At that question the stranger shifted uneasily from one foot to another. And since he had six feet, he looked for a moment as if he were engaged in a queer sort of dance.
"I should say—" he said at last—"I should say his horns were aboutmedium."
Kiddie Katydid stared at the fellow very hard.
"I believe you know more than you're willing to tell!" he suddenly cried. And then he quickly shoved the letter inside the stranger's mail-pouch. "That's not for me, after all!" he declared. "Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the person that sent this letter is a Short-horn, the same as you.And I want nothing to do with him!"
"Where's that other fellow that was clamoring for the message?" the stranger asked. And spying Leaper the Locust on the edge of the crowd, he sprang upon him, collared him, and explained that there had been a mistake.
"The message is for you," he announced.
"But I don't want it now!" Leaper the Locust shouted. "I've heard it twice already; and I don't like it in the least!"
Kiddie Katydid looked on happily while Leaper the Locust struggled to free himself from the clutches of the messenger. But Leaper was no match for the stranger. In the end he had to accept the message as his own.
"Now," said the stranger, "your cousin and his family will reach here by to-morrow at the latest. So you'd better be making arrangements to welcome him.
"Remember! Have plenty of food ready! I'll warn you now that if your cousin's family have to go hungry they'll be pretty angry with you."
"I don't believe I need to worry," Leaper the Locust remarked carelessly. "If they don't like what I have they can go without, for all I care."
Though the stranger said nothing in reply to that, he glared at Leaper in a threatening fashion which haunted him all the rest of the night.
"I wish I had never heard of this horrid message!" he exclaimed at last. "I wish I had never laid claim to it. It's going to cause me trouble, I know!"
The more he worried over the visit of his unknown cousin, the more Leaper the Locust wished he were safely rid of the whole affair.
"I know what I'll do!" he cried at last. "I'll disguise myself. I'll make my horns so long that people will think I'm somebody else."
So he set to work. And biting off someslender grasses, he bound them to his stubby horns with threads from a spider's web which he found in the pasture.
Then he looked at himself in a pool.
"I'm a Long-horn now!" he exclaimed. And he was greatly pleased at the sight of himself—he who had once scoffed at Kiddie Katydid's horns and advised him to have them trimmed.
Meanwhile the strange messenger had disappeared. It was said that he had gone to meet the other travellers and guide them to their cousin, Leaper the Locust.
And there was great excitement throughout Pleasant Valley. A good many of the field people stopped at Farmer Green's dooryard and told Kiddie Katydid that they thought he had made a mistake.
"You might have had the honor of receiving the guests," they said.
"No, thank you!" he replied to all such remarks. "I'm willing enough to let Leaper the Locust do the honors. And unless I'm much mistaken, he's trembling in his shoes this very moment."
Then the field people would shake their heads and say that they didn't understand. Wasn't everybodygladto have company once in a while? And wouldn't it be apleasureto talk with strangers who came from some far-off place, and ask them how the crops were where they lived, and what the weather was?
But Kiddie Katydid only said mysteriously, "Wait a bit! And if you wantstrangersto talk to, there'll soon be plenty of them in this neighborhood, if I'm not mistaken."
Well, Kiddie's neighbors couldn't imagine what he meant. They made a good many guesses. But there was alwayssomebody to point out some flaw and upset every calculation. So at last everybody stopped guessing and admitted that he had no idea as to what Kiddie Katydid had in mind. It was just another one of his secrets. And people might as well wait patiently to see what happened. Even Solomon Owl agreed to that. "Time will tell!" he said with a wise nod of his head.
In at least one respect, the short-horned messenger had told the truth. Before twenty-four hours had gone by, the fellow returned to Farmer Green's dooryard; and with him came a great, fat person who belonged without question to the Locust family.
Nobody could call his horns long. Nor could anyone call them medium. They were short; and no one in his right mind would deny it.
"Where's that fellow you call Leaper?" the messenger asked Chirpy Cricket. "Here's his cousin! And the rest of thefamily will be dropping down here in just a few minutes."
Chirpy Cricket replied that he hadn't seen Leaper the Locust since the night before.
"That's strange!" the messenger remarked, turning to his fat companion. "He was to be here to welcome you."
"Ah! I see him now! He's right here in this tree!" exclaimed the fat one. And he half-jumped, half-flew into Kiddie Katydid's favorite tree.
"You're wrong!" said Kiddie Katydid. "I'm a Long-horn—and you can't claim to be a cousin of mine."
"My mistake! My mistake!" said the fat gentleman hastily. And he left even more suddenly than he had come.
"I hope your friend Leaper hasn't given us the slip," he remarked to the messenger as he joined him again.
"Never fear! If he fails us we'll find him and punish him as he deserves," said the messenger with a savage frown.
And Kiddie Katydid, looking down from his tree-top, was gladder than ever that he had escaped this terrible trouble that had come to Leaper the Locust.
Soon a patter, patter, patter made itself heard among the leaves.
"My goodness! Can that be rain?" Freddie Firefly exclaimed. "The moon is shining. And I don't see a cloud in the sky."
Even as he spoke the strange sound grew louder.
"Can it be hailing?" Freddie asked Kiddie Katydid anxiously.
"Oh, no!" Kiddie told him. "What you hear is nothing but Leaper the Locust's cousin's family. They're just beginning to arrive."
Freddie Firefly could scarcely believe his own ears.
"Why, there must be dozens of them!" he cried.
"More than that!" Kiddie Katydid replied.
"Hundreds, then!"
"Still more!" Kiddie Katydid said.
"Well,thousands, then!" cried Freddie Firefly. "You don't mean to say there are more of 'em than that?"
"There are tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands," Kiddie Katydid declared solemnly. "They'll eat everything they can find. And we shall be lucky if they leave enough for the rest of us to live on, after they pass on."
"How did you learn all this?" Freddie Firefly wanted to know.
"That's another of my secrets," said Kiddie Katydid.
So Freddie Firefly went off to hunt for Leaper the Locust. He knew now why Leaper had struggled to escape from that mysterious messenger with the curious message. And Freddie intended to ask Leaper a good many questions about his cousins.
But he couldn't find Leaper anywhere. He searched for him high and low, and far and wide. But nobody knew where Leaper was.
"There are lots of Short-horns everywhere to-night," Benjamin Bat told him. "I claim any one of them is just as good as another." And Benjamin grinned horribly.
Freddie Firefly shuddered. It seemed to him that he had never passed such a dreadful night before.
But Benjamin Bat was having the time of his life. He said that he hoped theShort-horns would like Pleasant Valley so well that they would decide to stay right there for the rest of their days. But, strange to say, Benjamin made things as unpleasant as possible for the newcomers. Heateas many of them as he could, remarking that from such a horde a few would scarcely be missed.
In spite of his lengthened horns, Leaper the Locust hardly dared show himself while his cousins remained in the neighborhood.
But when he did venture out, not one of the hungry horde paid the slightest heed to him. They just ate and ate and ate. And Pleasant Valley soon began to take on a brown, withered look, as if fall had already come.
Kiddie Katydid soon saw that he would have to move, if Leaper's cousins lingered there much longer. And he didn't like the thought of quitting his home.
"I wouldn't mind going, if I could take Farmer Green's dooryard with me," he remarked to a long-horned gentleman who stopped to talk with him one evening. "But of course," Kiddie added with a smile, "that's out of the question."
"I quite agree with you," said the other. "In fact, I'm ready to agree to almost anything you say."
"These Short-horns are a terrible lot!" Kiddie Katydid observed.
"They are, indeed!" exclaimed the polite stranger. "I wish they'd finish their visit here and leave us in peace."
"I never want to see another Short-horn as long as I live," Kiddie Katydid declared.
"Nor I!" echoed the strange gentleman.
And Kiddie Katydid couldn't help thinking what a pleasant person the long-hornedstranger was and how gentle were his manners.
"I'd like to know your name!" he cried. "It's a long time since I have met anybody so agreeable as you are."
The stranger drew nearer and lowered his voice.
"Don't you know me?" he asked.
Kiddie Katydid stared at him for a moment.
"No!" he said at length. "To be sure, you do have a familiar look, in a way. But I must say I don't recognize you."
Then the stranger spoke in a whisper:
"They used to call me 'Leaper the Locust'!"
"Go 'way!" cried Kiddie Katydid. "Hewas nothing but a Short-horned Grasshopper. And anyone can see with half an eye that your horns are fully as long as my own."
"They're not real horns," said the other sadly. "That is, they're real only a part of the way."
And looking more closely, Kiddie Katydid saw that what he said was true. It was, indeed, Leaper the Locust. And he was greatly changed in more ways than one.
He had lost his old, quarrelsome air; and he had become very meek and mild.
"Don't tell my cousins what I've done!" he begged Kiddie Katydid. "I don't want them to know who I am."
Kiddie assured the poor fellow that he would not betray him. He was sorry for Leaper the Locust.
"You'll be glad when your relations move on, won't you?" he said. "Then you can take those bits of grass off your horns and be yourself again."
Leaper's answer almost took KiddieKatydid's breath away, for it was a most surprising statement.
"I'm never going to be a Short-horn again!" he declared. "I shall wear my horns long to the end of my days."
He kept his word, too. And so earnestly did he try to be like Kiddie Katydid in every way that he even attempted Kiddie's well knownKaty didmelody. But he never really succeeded at that. Anyone with an ear for music could tell the difference at once.
Luckily the grasshopper horde soon swept on to new fields. And a few warm rains, with sunshine sandwiched in between showers, soon turned the countryside green again. It was reallyPleasantValley once more. And on fine autumn nights Kiddie Katydid's shrill music could be heard more than ever near the farmhouse.
Leaper the Locust never could hear enough of it. He was always begging Kiddie to repeat the odd ditty about the mysterious Katy—hoping, perhaps, that sometime he might learn more about her.
But Kiddie Katydid guarded his secret too well.