"
That is what Bessie Allen said to the little creature she held between
her thumb and fingers. Did you ever say that rhyme? I should not wonder
if you had said it an hundred times.
The grasshopper in Bessie's fingers seemed very ready to give her brown
molasses from his little mouth and then she let him hop away while she
went to catch another. She did not want that molasses; all she wanted
was the fun of catching the little "hoppity-hops," as she sometimes
called them.
"Come, catch me! I'm a hopper," called her five-year-old brother Willie.
And she saw the little fellow hopping through the grass.
Bessie had so much fun trying to catch this new "grasshopper gray," that
she forgot all about the little creatures she had been pinching.
At last she had her arms around her brother Willie.
"Now you are caught," she said. "Give me some molasses."
And then they both laughed so hard that their mother heard as she came
to the door to look for them.
That night their mother said to their father:
"I have a new name for Willie."
"What is it?" asked their father.
"Tithonus," said their mother.
[Illustration: AURORA, THE GODDESS OF THE DAWN. From a painting on an
old vase.
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