By this time Betty was so eager to have him go on that she had forgotten
all about being afraid of him. "And when they whir up from the road,
sir, they say, 'Clack! clack! clack!'"
The old man made a sound like the noise of a locust.
"How does it make its mouth move, sir?"
"It doesn't make its mouth move, child. It makes the noise by striking
the edges of the gauzy wings and hard wing covers together. See, this
way!" And the old man struck his arm and leg together. "It has another
fiddle, too, which it uses when it makes the long, rasping, drowsy sound
of summer days. Then it rubs the rough edges of its hind leg against the
edge of its wing-cover."
"Please, is it happy, then?" asked Betty.
"Just as happy as a healthy locust, who lives in long, sweet-smelling
grass and is contented with his own singing, can be, and that is very
happy."
"Oh!" said Betty, "it doesn't use its mouth, then? Jimmie said it did."
"Jimmie's a stupid boy. See this fellow." The old man held the locust
toward Betty. "With its upper lip, broad, you see; and there is the
lower lip made in two scallops, and there's a short feeler on either
side, and another pair of soft jaws with a feeler. Hidden away under
those parts is a pair of dark-brown, horny jaws which open like two big
swinging gates."
"What makes them so big?"
"The better to eat you with, my dear." The guide worked his jaws until
Betty, half afraid and half pleased, screamed and ran behind a tree.
"Oh, how they can eat!" growled the old man, "more than any little girl
or boy I ever knew! Years and years ago, when your mamma was a baby,
they mounted up into the air from the Rocky Mountains and flew eastward
in a great cloud. Down they swooped upon the fertile valleys in rustling
hordes, and ate everything in sight--grass, grains, vegetables, and
bushes. They ate and ate and ate until they had eaten up fifty million
dollars' worth of food, and the poor farmer could hear nothing but the
sound of the chewing of those ever-swinging jaws. Now, be off, little
girl, or my pails won't be clean."
"Oh, please, sir, just tell me how they jump and breathe."
"Dear, dear, see this fellow!" He had wet a little grain of maple sugar,
and a tiny meadow grasshopper which had alighted on his knee was pushing
the sweet stuff into its mouth with both fore legs. "Child, you must
never," said the old man, savagely, "push your food in that way."
"Please, sir," answered Betty, "I never do, because I eat with my fork
and my knife. Please, sir, are they happy when they jump?"
"Looks like a horse, doesn't it?" asked the old man. "It's made for
jumping. Think of all the training it takes to make a jumper of your
brother at school. Well, this chap can jump ten times as far. It's born
with a better jump than the longest-legged boy you ever saw. But the
locust might get its head cut off when jumping if it weren't for this
little saddle that covers the soft part of the neck. Mr. Locust can't
always look before he leaps, as a little girl can, and the knife edge of
a blade of grass would cut its head right off if it weren't for this
saddle. See, here are its long leaping-legs, and on the back edge of
these are some spines to keep it from slipping, and the feet are padded
with several soft little cushions that keep it from chin-chopping itself
to pieces when it lands after a long jump. And here, my dear, are little
rest-legs just behind the front legs. With these Mr. Locust hangs on to
a blade of grass when tired--a fine idea, child; every little boy and
girl ought to have some rest-legs like the locust. And the locust has
some extra eyes, too."
Ben Gile was going so fast now that Betty was listening to him, mouth
open, as he pointed with a blade of grass to one thing after another.
"You see, the locust has two big eyes, and there in the middle of the
forehead it has three little eyes, and with five eyes there isn't much
it can't see. And here on the body are two tiny shining oval windows.
These are ear-laps, and that, my dear, is the way it hears. And upon the
sides of the body (the thorax--that is, just the chest) and his abdomen
are tiny holes. The air enters through these, and that is the way Mr.
Locust breathes."
"Oh," said Betty, "then it hasn't got any nose? I thought everything in
the world had a nose."
"And this little body," the old man went on, "is as strong as a grub
hoe. With it the locust makes holes in fence rails, logs, stumps, and
the earth, and in those holes mother locust lays her eggs. See, those
four spines are for boring holes. With these Mrs. Locust bores a hole in
the ground, and then with these same spines she guides the bundles of
eggs into the hole and covers them up with a gummy stuff. There the eggs
stay until next spring, when, my dear, out comes a little hopper with no
wings, and this little hopper is called a nymph. It grows and splits its
skin, grows and splits its skin, and with its new skin--it has five or
six skins, and leaves all its old clothes hanging around on the
bushes--its wings grow bigger and bigger. At last it flies off just as
its mother and father did a year ago."
Ben Gile tossed the locust into the air and called out, "Shoo!" clapping
his hands loudly together. Out from the woods came two baby deer, a
wise, gentle old cow; from the cabin came a mother cat and three kittens
and a big black dog; and from the trees scampered down a half a dozen
squirrels.
"Time for dinner."
Betty went up to him and whispered something in his ear. The old man
nodded his head solemnly, and the little girl went trotting along the
path to Rangeley Village.