HOW DOCAS CAUGHT THE GRASSHOPPERS
ONE day in September, Docas and the rest of the family were all seated round a large basket. They were eating their acorn mush. Just as Docas put his stick in to get some, he heard something go “click” behind him.
He thought to himself, “The grasshoppers are getting thicker.”
He lifted his stick, and there in the mush on the end of it was a grasshopper.
“Look!” said Docas to Heema.
“Let me get him out,” said Heema, laughing and picking up a stick from the ground. Heema lifted the grasshopper out of the mush.
Then Docas said, “Let’s catch grasshoppers to-morrow.”
Heema said, “Yes.”
All day they heard the “Click, click,” of jumping grasshoppers.
That evening, when the children began playing, Docas ran up to them and said, “Help me dig a hole to catch the grasshoppers in.”
The children began digging a little way out from the rancheria, and before dark they had made a big hole.
Next morning, while the grasshoppers were still cold and stiff, Docas said to the children, “Let’s make a big ring around the hole before the sun warms the grasshoppers.”
And they did so.
“Now we will walk slowly toward the hole,” said the children.
Little by little the children came nearer. Little by little the ring grew smaller. Little by little the grasshoppers inside the ring grew frightened.
“They’re jumping down into the hole now,” said Docas.
Soon the children were close to the edge of the hole.
“I am going to jump into the hole,” said Docas. “I can soon catch them down there. They cannot jump out so easily as they jumped in.”
So Docas caught all the grasshoppers that were in the hole. He longed to eat them, but he waited until they were cooked. Ama baked the grasshoppers in the fire until they were quite dry; then she ground them in the stone bowl just as she did the acorns.
After that the Indians ate them.