"Oh, I see! It is catching, isn't it? I have seen some bad cases, especially in small towns. Every young lady, even just girls"—I glance sidewise at Mary—"down with it. But is that what those boys over there are doing? I hope they won't interfere with the tarantulas. They probably don't know what lively times there are at nights in that field. Scores of big black tarantulas racing about, hunting, and hundreds of beetles and things racing about, trying to keep from being eaten. Well, I'd better begin, because we have to get back by luncheon time. I have a most profound lecture to give on Orthogenesis and Heterogenesis to that unfortunate Evolution class at two o'clock."
"I'm all ready," said Mary, looking up at me with confidence. She appreciates the kind of lectures I give outdoors, even if the lunch-gorged students don't appreciate my efforts ex cathedra.
"Well this summer invasion that I promised to tell you about happened when I was a boy in a little town in Kansas. It was in Centennial year; the one-hundredth anniversary of the freedom of the United States, and the summer of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia.
"I was going down town one day in July to buy some meat for dinner. I was going because my mother had sent me. Naturally this promised to be a very uninteresting excursion. But you never can tell.
"When I had got fairly down to Commercial Street, I saw that all the people were greatly excited. Some were talking loudly, but most were staring up toward the sun, shading their eyes with their hands. Then I heard old Mr. Beasley say: 'That's surely them all right; doggon, they'll eat us up.'
"My heart jumped. Who could be coming from the sun to eat us up? I burst into excited questions. 'Who are coming, Mr. Beasley? I can't see anybody.'
"'Hoppers is coming boy; see that sort o' shiny thin cloud up there jest off the edge o' the sun? Well, them's hoppers.'
"'But how'll they eat us up, Mr. Beasley? No grasshopper can eat me up.'