of a tree. 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.
XVI
A NOISY CROWD
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.
XVII
KITTY DID!
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 is _my_
party. 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 was _Kitty 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.
XVIII
THE TWO GRASSHOPPERS
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 the question 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."
[Illustration: Kiddie Faced Leaper the Locust
(_Page 90_)]
"It's bad enough to look somewhat like Leaper 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 two happened 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."
XIX
A QUARREL
Kiddie Katydid and Leaper the Locust quarreled so loudly that they soon
drew a crowd around them.
"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 like _his_!" 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 horns _were_ short. 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 for _you_!"
And he shoved the message into Kiddie Katydid's willing hands.
Almost immediately Leaper the Locust jumped back again.
But of course he was too late.
XX
THE STRANGER'S MESSAGE
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 to tell 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!_
"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
wants to 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 about
_medium_."
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!"
XXI
LEAPER THE LOCUST IS WORRIED
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 some slender 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 everybody _glad_ to have company once in a while? And
wouldn't it be a _pleasure_ to 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 want
_strangers_ to 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 always somebody 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.
XXII
THE SHORT-HORNS ARRIVE
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 the family 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
the Short-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.
He _ate_ as many of them as he could, remarking that from such a horde a
few would scarcely be missed.
XXIII
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
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-horned stranger 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.