Ben Gile shook his head. As his hair was long and white, and his hands
moved with his head, just as if he were a lot of dried branches moving
in the wind, it was enough to frighten little Betty. "Plagues of Egypt!
Plagues of Egypt!" he kept muttering. Now, Betty had been to school a
long time--I think it must have been as much as two whole years, which
is a very _long_ time for school and a very _short_ time for climbing
trees--now, Betty had been to school and knew better. She crept behind a
big beech-tree, but she stuck her little head out and said, in a
trembling voice:
"It was locusts, sir, wasn't it--and wild honey?"
Betty wasn't at all certain that any kind of honey could be a plague.
"It was locusts, child--yes, you're right," answered the old man.
"Locusts it was; but you eat wild honey."
Betty came out from behind the tree and whispered, "You eat them
_both_?"
"So men did in the Bible," said Ben Gile, and washing his sugar-pails,
and putting his maple sugar camp--a very sweet place for a little girl
to be when there are still piles of maple sugar packed away on the
shelves--in order for the summer.
In all her short life Betty had never known another old man like him. In
the winter he taught school; in spring he made maple sugar; in summer he
was guiding about the ponds or looking up into the trees most of the
time; and in the fall he cut wood before he went back to teaching; but
what was oddest of all to Betty was that he knew the squirrels and deer
and rabbits as well as he seemed to know little girls or little boys.
There was a story told in those woods about his taming even a trout so
that one morning it hopped out of the water and followed him everywhere
he went--hop, hop, flop behind him. And in the evening, as Ben Gile and
his tame trout were passing by the pond again, the trout fell in and was
drowned. But, dear me, that is a fish story, and you mustn't believe any
fish stories whatever except those your father tells! Still, if your
grandpa is fond of fishing, you may believe his fish stories, too.
[Illustration:
_A._ A locust.
_B._ Cast-off skin of a young locust.]
Betty came out farther from behind the tree. "Please, sir, do _you_ eat
grasshoppers?"
"Not yet, my dear." The old man's eyes twinkled. "I knew a little boy
once"--Betty was wondering whether this old man had ever been a little
boy himself--"I knew a little boy once who wasn't afraid to swallow even
a caterpillar, but I think that little boy never thought of eating a
grasshopper." The old man shook his head gravely. "No, not a
grasshopper."
"Please, sir," said Betty, coming right up to the bucket he was washing
in the brook--"please, sir, do you know any stories about grasshoppers?"
Ben Gile laid his finger along his nose and thought. Betty was sure he
knew a hundred million stories, and that he could tell her something
about anything she might ask for in all the world.
"Well, once upon a time," the old man began, "there was another old man
who was a great deal wiser than I am, and a great deal richer, my dear,
for he owned a whole kingdom and lived in a palace, and his name was--"
"Solomon!" called out Betty, dancing up and down, out of pride in her
own wisdom.
"Right! And this other old man said:
"There are four things which are little upon the earth, but
they are exceedingly wise:
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their
meat in the summer;
"The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses
in the rocks;
"The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by
bands;
"The spider taketh hold with her hands and is in kings'
palaces."
"But that's not a story."
The guide shook his head. "You don't know a story, child, when you hear
one. It began, 'Once upon a time,' didn't it?"
"Yes, sir; but please tell me another."
"Well, there are others in the Bible, my dear, about locusts and
grasshoppers."
"But, please, sir," said Betty, who was almost ready to cry, she was so
teased--"please tell me one of your _own_ stories."
Ben Gile began to swash his bucket up and down, up and down, in the
stream until the water fairly rocked. Then he pulled the bucket out of
the water, set it beside him, and reached out after a locust.
"Here he is." There was a long pause. Betty thought he would never go
on. "Well, once upon a time there was a little army and all its uniforms
were brown and green, and from the meanest soldier in the ranks to the
lieutenant-commander this little army was made up of insects who
belonged to the same tribe. Let me see--there were the grasshoppers and
the locusts and the katydids and the crickets."
"Please, sir, were they cousins?"
"I think they were, my dear. Yes, first cousins, and, unlike even my
first cousins, they all have wings, and straight wings like this."
The guide gently spread out one of the wings.
"Just where the back of your chest is these wings grow--two pairs of
wings, my dear, and two pairs of wings mean a good deal more than two
pairs of new shoes. This first pair is straight and narrow and hard,
because it is meant to cover the gauzy wings underneath. Puff!"
Away flew the locust.
"You see, he doesn't use his first pair, but holds them out straight
from his body while he spreads out the gauzy ones like a--like a--"
"Fan!" shouted Betty, quite forgetting the tiny squirrel who had come up
near her, and, at her shout, nearly jumped out of his little red
jacket.
"A yellow fan," said the old man. "And some have a red fan. Well, I
think," said he, reaching for his pail, "there isn't going to be any
more of this story."
"Not any more? But there must be more, sir; I've seen hundreds and
hundreds of them on a dusty road, and, please, they're just the color of
the dirt."