The Tale of Kiddie Katydid Part 9

"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 gra.s.ses, 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.

n.o.body 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.