There were more Ants in the meadow than there were of any other kind of
insects. In their family there were not only Ants, but great-aunts,
cousins, nephews, and nieces, until it made one sleepy to think how many
relatives each Ant had. Yet they were small people and never noisy, so
perhaps the Grasshoppers seemed to be the largest family there.
There were many different families of Grasshoppers, but they were all
related. Some had short horns, or feelers, and red legs; and some had
long horns. Some lived in the lower part of the meadow where it was
damp, and some in the upper part. The Katydids, who really belong to
this family, you know, stayed in trees and did not often sing in the
daytime. Then there were the great Road Grasshoppers who lived only in
places where the ground was bare and dusty, and whom you could hardly
see unless they were flying. When they lay in the dust their wide wings
were hidden and they showed only that part of their bodies which was
dust-color. Let the farmer drive along, however, and they rose into the
air with a gentle, whirring sound and fluttered to a safe place. Then
one could see them plainly, for their large under wings were black with
yellow edges.
Perhaps those Grasshoppers who were best known in the meadow were the
Clouded Grasshoppers, large dirty-brown ones with dark spots, who seemed
to be everywhere during the autumn. The fathers and brothers in this
family always crackled their wings loudly when they flew anywhere, so
one could never forget that they were around.
It was queer that they were always spoken of as Grasshoppers. Their
great-great-great-grandparents were called Locusts, and that was the
family name, but the Cicadas liked that name and wanted it for
themselves, and made such a fuss about it that people began to call them
Seventeen-Year-Locusts; and then because they had to call the real
Locusts something else, they called them Grasshoppers. The Grasshoppers
didn't mind this. They were jolly and noisy, and as they grew older were
sometimes very pompous. And you know what it is to be pompous.
When the farmer was drawing the last loads of hay to his barn and
putting them away in the great mows there, three young Clouded
Grasshopper brothers were frolicking near the wagon. They had tried to
see who could run the fastest, crackle the loudest, spring the highest,
flutter the farthest, and eat the most. There seemed to be nothing more
to do. They couldn't eat another mouthful, the other fellows wouldn't
play with them, they wouldn't play with their sisters, and they were not
having any fun at all.
They were sitting on a hay-cock, watching the wagon as it came nearer
and nearer. The farmer was on top and one of his men was walking beside
it. Whenever they came to a hay-cock the farmer would stop the Horses,
the man would run a long-handled, shining pitch-fork into the hay on the
ground and throw it up to the farmer. Then it would be trampled down on
to the load, the farmer's wife would rake up the scattering hay which
was left on the ground, and that would be thrown up also.
The biggest Clouded Grasshopper said to his brothers, "You dare not sit
still while they put this hay on the load!"