"They're not real horns," said the other sadly. "That is, they're real only a part of the way."
And looking more closely, Kiddie Katydid saw that what he said was true. It was, indeed, Leaper the Locust. And he was greatly changed in more ways than one.
He had lost his old, quarrelsome air; and he had become very meek and mild.
"Don't tell my cousins what I've done!" he begged Kiddie Katydid. "I don't want them to know who I am."
Kiddie assured the poor fellow that he would not betray him. He was sorry for Leaper the Locust.
"You'll be glad when your relations move on, won't you?" he said. "Then you can take those bits of grass off your horns and be yourself again."
Leaper's answer almost took Kiddie Katydid's breath away, for it was a most surprising statement.
"I'm never going to be a Short-horn again!" he declared. "I shall wear my horns long to the end of my days."
He kept his word, too. And so earnestly did he try to be like Kiddie Katydid in every way that he even attempted Kiddie's well known Katy did melody. But he never really succeeded at that. Anyone with an ear for music could tell the difference at once.
Luckily the grasshopper horde soon swept on to new fields. And a few warm rains, with sunshine sandwiched in between showers, soon turned the countryside green again. It was really Pleasant Valley once more. And on fine autumn nights Kiddie Katydid's shrill music could be heard more than ever near the farmhouse.