oing to disappoint me?" Mr. Nighthawk
whined, as he looked hungrily at Kiddie Katydid. "Please, please jump
for me--just once!" he begged. "Here I've come all the way across the
meadow on purpose to see what a fine jumper you are! And I shall feel
very unhappy if you don't perform for me."

But Kiddie Katydid refused to budge.

"I hadn't intended to do any leaping to-night," he told Mr. Nighthawk.
"And if I jumped for you, it would only upset my plans."

"I know--I know," said Mr. Nighthawk, nodding his head. "But I thought
that just to oblige a friend you wouldn't object to jumping from this
tree into that one." And he pointed to the nearest maple, the branches
of which all but touched the tree-top in which they were sitting. But
Kiddie Katydid's mind was made up.

"No jumping for me to-night!" he piped in a shrill voice.

All this time Mr. Nighthawk was growing hungrier than ever. And one
might well wonder why he didn't make one quick spring at Kiddie Katydid
and swallow him. But that was not Mr. Nighthawk's way of dining.

"Well," he said at last, "though you refuse to jump for me, won't you
kindly call some other member of your family and ask him to oblige me?"

"I don't know where my relations are just now," replied Kiddie Katydid.
"Some of them were here a while ago; but they went away." And that was
quite true! At that _peent_--that first warning cry--of Mr. Nighthawk's,
they had all vanished as if by magic, among the leaves.

"What about that Katy you're always talking about?" Mr. Nighthawk then
inquired. "Don't you suppose you could find _her_ and persuade _her_ to
do a little jumping for me--just to show me how it's done?"

"I'm sorry--" Kiddie said somewhat stiffly, "I'm sorry; but I must
absolutely refuse to do such a thing. Now that you've mentioned her,
I'll simply say _Katy did_. And beyond that I cannot discuss her with
you."

"She did what?" Mr. Nighthawk wanted to know--through his nose.

But Kiddie Katydid declined to answer that question. He merely hugged
his wings closer to his green body, and shot a sly glance at Mr.
Nighthawk, as if to say, "Ah! That's for _you_ to find out! But I shan't
tell you!"

Mr. Nighthawk looked rather foolish. He had always supposed that any one
who spent a good part of every night saying the same thing over and over
and over again must be quite dull-witted. But now he began to think that
perhaps Kiddie Katydid was brighter than the field people generally
be