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Pluh the pebbly sand The baredid not shade the footbridge now Under the leafless pluone away

The dry earth was hot, the sunshine was scorching, and the sky was a brassy color The whirring of grasshoppers sounded like heat There were no good smells any more

Then Laura saw a queer thing All over the knoll grasshoppers were sitting still with their tails down in the ground They did not stir, even when Laura poked them

She poked one away fro out of the hole a gray thing It was shaped like a fat worm, but it was not alive She did not knohat it was Jack snuffed at it, and wondered, too

Laura started toward the wheat-field to ask Pa about it But Pa was not plowing Sa still with the plow, and Pa alking on the unplowed ground, looking at it Then Laura saw hio to the plow and lift it out of the furrow He went, driving Sam and David toward the stable with the idle plow

Laura knew that only so dreadful wouldShe went as fast as she could to the stable Sa up their sweaty harness He caed slowly after him into the house

Ma looked up at him and said, “Charles! What is the matter now?”

“The grasshoppers are laying their eggs,” said Pa “The ground’s honeycombed with thes are buried a couple of inches deep All over the wheat-field Everywhere You can’t put your finger down between them Look here”

He took one of those gray things from his pocket and held it out on his hand

“That’s one of ’e thes in every pod There’s a pod in every hole There’s eight or ten holes to the square foot All over this whole country”

Ma dropped down in a chair and let her hands fall helpless at her sides

“We’ve got no ,” said Pa “When those eggs hatch, there won’t be a green thing left in this part of the world”

“Oh, Charles!” Ma said “What e do?”

Pa slumped down on a bench and said, “I don’t know”

Mary’s braids swung over the edge of the ladder hole and her face