"Well, what is there about an old grasshopper, anyhow?"
"I don't know, but Ben will."
"But tell us something, mum," urged Jimmie, who loved his mother dearly, and was certain she knew more than anybody else, in part because she had been to college, but chiefly because she was his mother.
"Let me see," said Mrs. Reece, "I shall have to think about it." Both of the children came as close to her as they could, while she continued:
"What a strange world it would be if there were no insects in it! We should have no little crickets chirping in the sunny fields or in the dark corners and cracks of our houses. There would be no katydids singing all night, no clacking of the locusts in the tall grass along dusty roads, no drowsy hum of bees. There would be no little ants and big ants digging out underground tunnels and carrying the grains of sand as far from their doorways as possible. There would be no brightly colored moths and butterflies flitting from flower to flower. We should find no sparkling fairy webs spun anew for us every morning."
"But, mother, all these creatures aren't insects," said Jimmie.
"Yes, they are, dear. It is hard to believe that they all belong to the same family called insecta, but they do."
"Mother, what's that word mean?"
"It doesn't mean anything more than cut up into parts. You see, Betty, all these insect bodies are made up of separate rings joined nicely together. If you look carefully you will find that behind the head there is another distinct part. This is called the thorax, which means chest. Behind that there is a pointed part of the body, which is called the abdomen. Then, if you look again, you will see that all these little creatures are alike in that they have six jointed legs."
"And are they all good, like the bee and the butterfly?" asked Betty, who wasn't always a good little girl herself, and who thought it would be much nicer if insects were naughty sometimes.