Mrs. Warlow, who stood on the latticed balcony that ran along the eastern front of the dwelling, and on which there opened glass doors, instead of windows, from the long range of dormer gables in the upper story of that picturesque homestead, was looking out to the north, and as she saw a dark, strange cloud quickly rising, she called to the boys to come in at once as a storm was almost upon them.
As the boys glanced out towards the north-west they could see the unnatural, black cloud stretching across the northern horizon, but momentarily growing nearer, like a dense shadow on a summer landscape.
Their father, who had been reading on the porch, laid aside his paper on hearing the unusual commotion, and stepped out in the yard.
"What can it be?" said Clifford anxiously.
"A dust-storm, probably," replied the colonel, as the weather had been dry and parching hot for several weeks past.
On came the threatening cloud, filling the air from the earth to an incredible height, and a low muffled roar grew louder every moment; then, as the startled family sought the shelter of the dwelling, a seething mass of insects filled the air.
"Grasshoppers! grasshoppers!" cried Rob, dancing about in wild excitement.
"Locusts!" exclaimed the colonel in great consternation; but even then no one but himself realized the terrible disaster and wide-spread ruin which their visit portended; but as he said, gravely, that they were the dreaded locusts or grasshoppers which often laid waste whole nations of Spanish-America, devouring every vestige of the growing crops of those countries and in one day leaving the land like a desert, then the meaning of the appalling calamity slowly dawned upon them.
It was truly an awe-inspiring scene that met their sight, as they stood by the wide windows and looked out on the storm of insect life that raged by, darkening the sun itself as they swarmed along in countless billions.
One who sees the feeble "hopper" spring aside from his path through the Eastern meadows can but dimly comprehend the terrible sight—the cubic miles of winged pests that rush by with a hurtling roar, filling the air all that day like the drifting snow-flakes, through which the sunlight dimly glimmered, or rolling by like the rack of some fierce storm.