Miss Katy-Did sat on the branch of a flowering azalia in her best
suit of fine green and silver, with wings of point-lace from mother
nature’s finest web.
Her gallant cousin, Colonel Katy-Did, had looked in to make her a
morning call.
“Certainly I am a pretty creature,” she said to herself when the
gallant Colonel said something about being dazzled by her beauty.
“The fact is, my dear Colonel,” said Miss Katy, “I am thinking of
giving a party, and you must help me make out the lists.”
“My dear, you make me the happiest of Katy-Dids.”
“Now,” said Miss Katy, drawing an azalia leaf towards her, “let us
see--whom shall we have? The Fireflies are a little unsteady, but
they are so brilliant, everybody wants them--and they belong to the
higher circles.”
“Yes, we must have the Fireflies,” said the colonel.
“Well, then--and the Butterflies and the Moths, now there’s the
trouble. There are so many Moths, and they’re so dull. Still if you
have the Butterflies you can’t leave out the Moths.”
“Old Mrs. Moth has been ill lately. That may keep two or three of the
Misses Moth at home,” said the colonel.
“I thought she was never sick,” said Miss Katy-Did.
“Yes, I understand she and her family ate up a whole fur cape last
month, and it disagreed with them.”
“Oh, how can they eat such things as worsted and fur?” then sneered
Miss Katy-Did.
“By your fairy-like delicacy one can see that you couldn’t eat such
things,” smiled the colonel.
“Mamma says she doesn’t know what keeps me alive. Half a dewdrop and
a little bit of the nicest part of a rose-leaf often lasts me for a
day. But to our list. Let’s see,--the Fireflies, Butterflies, Moths.
The Bees must come, I suppose.”
“The Bees are a worthy family,” nodded the colonel.
“Yes, but dreadfully humdrum. They never talk about anything but
honey and housekeeping.”
“Then there are the Bumble Bees.”
“Oh, I dote on them,” said Miss Katy-Did. “General Bumble is one of
the most dashing, brilliant fellows of the day.”
“He’s shockingly fat!” said the colonel.
“Yes, he is a little stout,” nodded Miss Katy-Did, “but he is very
elegant in his manners,--something soldierly and breezy about him.”
“If you invite the Bumble Bees, you must have the Hornets.”
“Ah, they are spiteful,--I detest them.”
“Nevertheless, one must not offend the Hornets, and how about the
Mosquitoes?” asked the Colonel.
“They are very common. Can’t one cut them?”
“I think not, my dear Miss Katy. Young Mosquito is connected with
some of our leading papers, and he carries a sharp pen. It will never
do to offend him.”
“And I suppose one must ask all his dreadful relations, too,” sighed
Miss Katy.
At this moment they saw Miss Keziah Cricket coming. She carried her
workbag on her arm, and she asked for a subscription to help a poor
family of Ants who had just had their house hoed up by some one who
was clearing the garden walks.
“How stupid of the Ants,” said Katy, “not to know better than to put
their house in a garden-walk.”
“Ah, they are in great trouble,” said Miss Cricket. “Their stores are
all destroyed, and their father killed--cut quite in two by a hoe.”
“How very shocking! I don’t like to hear such disagreeable things.
But I have nothing to give. Mamma said yesterday she didn’t know how
our bills were to be paid,--and there’s my green satin with point
lace yet to come home,” said Miss Katy, shrugging her shoulders.
Little Miss Cricket hopped briskly off. “Poor, extravagant little
thing,” she said to herself.
“Shall you invite the Crickets?” said Colonel Katy-Did.
“Why, Colonel, what a question! I invite the Crickets? No, indeed.”
“And shall you ask the Locusts or the Grasshoppers?”
“Certainly. The Locusts, of course--a very old and fine family, and
the Grasshoppers are pretty well, and ought to be asked. But one must
draw the line somewhere--and the Crickets! Why, I can’t think of
them.”
“I thought they were very nice, respectable people,” said the colonel.
“Oh, perfectly nice and respectable,--but----”
“Do explain, my dear Katy.”
“Why, their _colour_, to be sure. Don’t you see?”
“Oh!” said the colonel. “That’s it, is it? And tell me, please, who
decides what colour shall be the reigning colour?”
“What a question! The only true colour--the only proper one--is _our_
colour to be sure. A lovely pea green is the shade on which to found
an aristocratic distinction. Of course, we are liberal; we associate
with the Moths, who are gray; with the Butterflies, who are blue and
gold coloured; with the Grasshoppers, yellow and brown; and society
would become dreadfully mixed if it were not fortunately ordered
that the Crickets are as black as jet. The fact is that a class to
be looked down upon is necessary to all elegant society, and if the
Crickets were not black we could not keep them down. Everybody knows
they are often a great deal cleverer than we are. They have a vast
talent for music and dancing; they are very quick at learning, and
would be getting to the very top of the ladder if we allowed them to
climb. Now, so long as we are green and they are black, we have a
superiority that can never be taken from us. Don’t you see now?”
“Oh, yes, I see exactly,” said the colonel. “Now that Keziah Cricket,
who just came in here, is quite a musician, and her old father plays
the violin beautifully; by the way, we might engage him for our
orchestra.”
And so Miss Katy’s ball came off. It lasted from sundown till
daybreak, so that it seemed as if every leaf in the forest were
alive. The Katy-Dids, and the Mosquitoes, and the Locusts, and a full
orchestra of Crickets made the air perfectly vibrate.
Old Parson Too-Whit was shocked at the gaieties, which were kept up
by the pleasure-loving Katy-Dids night after night.
But about the first of September the celebrated Jack Frost epidemic
broke out. Poor Miss Katy, with her flimsy green satin, and point
lace, was one of the first victims, and fell from the bough in
company with a sad shower of last year’s leaves.
The worthy Cricket family, however, avoided Jack Frost by moving
in time to the chimney corner of a nice little cottage that had
been built in the wood. There good old Mr. and Mrs. Cricket, with
sprightly Miss Keziah and her brothers and sisters, found a warm and
welcome home. When the storm howled without, and lashed the poor,
naked trees, the crickets on the warm hearth would chirp out cheery
welcome to the happy family in the cottage.
(Adapted.)