hat drew you like a magnet. She took a sip of nectar
from some clover and was about to fly off again when she saw a
perfect droll of a beast perched on a blade of grass curving
above her flower. She was thoroughly scared--he was such a lean
green monster--but then her interest was tremendously aroused,
and she remained sitting still, as though rooted to the spot,
and stared straight at him.

At first glance you'd have thought he had horns. Looking closer
you saw it was his oddly protuberant forehead that gave this
impression. Two long, long feelers fine as the finest thread
grew out of his brows, and his body was the slimmest imaginable,
and green all over, even to his eyes. He had dainty forelegs and
thin, inconspicuous wings that couldn't be very practical, Maya
thought. Oddest of all were his great hindlegs, which stuck up
over his body like two jointed stilts. His sly, saucy expression
was contradicted by the look of astonishment in his eyes, and
you couldn't say there was any meanness in his eyes either. No,
rather a lot of good humor.

"Well, mademoiselle," he said to Maya, evidently annoyed by her
surprised expression, "never seen a grasshopper before? Or are
you laying eggs?"

"The idea!" cried Maya in shocked accents. "It wouldn't occur to
me. Even if I could, I wouldn't. It would be usurping the sacred
duties of our queen. I wouldn't do such a foolish thing."

The grasshopper ducked his head and made such a funny face that
Maya had to laugh out loud in spite of her chagrin.

"Mademoiselle," he began, then had to laugh himself, and said:
"You're a case! You're a case!"

The fellow's behavior made Maya impatient.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked in a not altogether friendly tone.
"You can't be serious expecting me to lay eggs, especially out
here on the grass."

There was a snap. "Hoppety-hop," said the grasshopper, and was
gone.

Maya was utterly non-plussed. Without the help of his wings
he had swung himself up in the air in a tremendous curve.
Foolhardiness bordering on madness, she thought.

But there he was again. From where, she couldn't tell, but there
he was, beside her, on a leaf of her clover.

He looked her up and down, all round, before and behind.

"No," he said then, pertly, "you certainly can't lay eggs.
You're not equipped for it. You haven't got a borer."

"What--borer?" Maya covered herself with her wings and turned
so that the stranger could see nothing but her face.

"Borer