“Nevertheless, one must not offend the Hornets, and how about the Mosquitoes?” asked the Colonel.
“They are very common. Can’t one cut them?”
“I think not, my dear Miss Katy. Young Mosquito is connected with some of our leading papers, and he carries a sharp pen. It will never do to offend him.”
“And I suppose one must ask all his dreadful relations, too,” sighed Miss Katy.
At this moment they saw Miss Keziah Cricket coming. She carried her workbag on her arm, and she asked for a subscription to help a poor family of Ants who had just had their house hoed up by some one who was clearing the garden walks.
“How stupid of the Ants,” said Katy, “not to know better than to put their house in a garden-walk.”
“Ah, they are in great trouble,” said Miss Cricket. “Their stores are all destroyed, and their father killed—cut quite in two by a hoe.”
“How very shocking! I don’t like to hear such disagreeable things. But I have nothing to give. Mamma said yesterday she didn’t know how our bills were to be paid,—and there’s my green satin with point lace yet to come home,” said Miss Katy, shrugging her shoulders.
Little Miss Cricket hopped briskly off. “Poor, extravagant little thing,” she said to herself.
“Shall you invite the Crickets?” said Colonel Katy-Did.