From “The Bluebird’s Garden.” Used by special permission of the
author and the Pilgrim Press.
Long, long, long ago--so long that this story has had time to grow
into a garden legend--two green grasshoppers went out, one fine day,
to play with a cricket. They played tag, and I’m on gypsyland. At
last they decided to have a game of hide-and-seek.
The goal was a blade of grass, and they counted out to see who should
be goal man. It fell to the little cricket, Katy-did. She was to hide
her eyes behind the grassblade, and count up to one hundred by tens,
while the two grasshoppers went off to hide.
So the cricket hid her face so that she could not see, and began:
“Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety,
one hundred! Coming!”
Though there were plenty of good places in which to hide in the
garden, one green grasshopper had been slow to suit himself. He had
not yet hidden when the little cricket turned about and caught him.
And he began, “You didn’t count up to a hundred! I didn’t have time
to hide! You should have hollered, ‘Coming!’ It’s no fair! I’m not
going to play any more--you didn’t count up to a hundred!”
At this, the other grasshopper came out of hiding. “She did count up
to a hundred,” he said, “Katy did!”
“She didn’t”
“She did!”
“She didn’t!”
“Katy did, did, did!”
“Katy didn’t, didn’t, didn’t!”
“Did, did, did!”
“Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t!”
“Katy did!”
“Katy didn’t!”
“She did!”
“She didn’t!”
“Katy did!”
“Katy didn’t!”
To this very, very day, you can hear the dispute still going on in
the garden, and the game of tag has never yet been finished. Ever
since that time the grasshoppers who started the discussion have been
called katydids, and the whole garden is full of the controversy. You
can hear hundreds of little voices keeping it up, though nothing is
ever decided. So it goes on eternally, Katy did--Katy didn’t, did,
did, did, didn’t, didn’t, she did, she didn’t--for nobody has ever
yet settled a dispute by contradiction. By this time, too, everyone
has forgotten what the quarrel was about.