16 THE SECOND FROGGY FAIRY BOOK.

dawned upon Elsie that it was unusual. To begin
with, the grasshoppers seeined to increase in size
as Elsie watched them. Then, when a number of
them had crawled by, others appeared walking
upright, and arrayed in yellow uniforms. They
carried little chips of mica which sparkled in the
bright sunlight.

Elsie wondered what these funny little
creatures could be doing, and where they
were going. She longed to follow them, and
started to get up, but found she could not move.
What might be the matter? Elsie grew fright-
ened. She looked around for Uncle Tom, but
failed to see him. Still he was near-by, for she
now heard him reading, plainly; it was evi-
dently the last verse of the poem, and she
hearkened :

Listener, take heed from this tale ;
Don’t trust blindly: friends oft’ fail.

Avoid a long bill, lest it bring ill
As to Croaker. Shall we wail?

A silence followed in which Elsie tried to
think over what she had just heard. The last
verse seemed a stupid kind of ending to sucha
funny poem Elsie felt very sleepy, so “she
decided to give up “vyzug to think.

She wandered, in her mind, back to the
grasshoppers, and again she seemed to see
.them. A tall and learned looking grasshopper