XVIII
THE TWO GRASSHOPPERS
Kiddie Katydid had a neighbor who was a good deal like him. Indeed, a careless person had to look sharply to discover much difference between them. But there was a difference. There was, especially, a certain way in which one could always tell them apart. One had only to take the trouble to look at their horns—or feelers. For Kiddie Katydid had horns as long—or longer—than he was. But his neighbor, who was known as Leaper the Locust, wore his horns quite short.
Although they saw each other often, Kiddie and this neighbor of his were not on the best of terms. The trouble was simply this: they couldn't agree on the question of horns. Whenever they met they were sure to have a most unpleasant dispute before they parted.
Really, their quarrels were as bad as those that Jimmy Rabbit and Frisky Squirrel once had over the matter of tails. And many of the field folk said it was a shame that the Grasshoppers' trouble couldn't be settled somehow.
Strange as it may seem, that remark always made Leaper the Locust terribly angry. And it enraged Kiddie Katydid as did nothing else.
The difficulty was that the field people—as well as Farmer Green's whole family—had fallen into the lazy habit of calling those two by the same name. They spoke of Kiddie Katydid as "the Long-horned Grasshopper," while they termed his neighbor "the Short-horned Grasshopper."
"It's bad enough to look somewhat like Leaper the Locust, without being tagged with the name of Grasshopper, along with him," Kiddie Katydid spluttered.
"Honestly, I'm tempted to move away from this neighborhood," Leaper the Locust began to tell everyone he met. "If that chap would only trim his horns to the proper length I wouldn't mind it so much. But he's actually proud of them. He's always waving them over his head, so people will notice them."