Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1894 — A REMINISCENCE. [ARTICLE]

A REMINISCENCE.

Detroit Free Press. “Talkin’ of grasshoppers,” said the man on the cracker box, “reminds me of the scourge of 1872, when the country out here was overrun by them pesky critters. Nobody knew whar they come from and nobody knew whar they went to, for they came without warnin’ an’ they left in the same fashun. I hed kept my weather eye peeled for a week, but naryla hopper did I see, when I heard as how they were at Blair an’ cornin' lickety split for Decatur.” “Them were lively times,”’ said tong Jim. the stage driver. “Lor! how scared the wimmin were with them jumping critters.” “-It were afore I married the widder.” continued the man on the cracker box, ‘’when I was livin’ with my sister after she came out here, ah’ I had a right smart of cabbage in the field by the house, an’ I warn't a goin’ to let no pack of measly grasshoppers eat ’em up, not if I knowed it. I heard after sundown as they had struck Blair, an I jes set to work ati’ covered every one of them cabbages up with blankets and comfortables.” “An’ I’ll bet you didn’t save a one, aot a one,” suggested Long Jim. "It’s right you are. I didn’t. When [ got up in the mornin’ the field was as bare as if it had been struck by a cyclone; not a thing left of them cabbage but the stalks in the ground. The hoppers had jes eaten the coverin' an’ the cabbages like so much provender an’ gone off to another country. I nearly cried over them cabbages.” “‘Toll us about them in tho oars," laid Long Jim. “This gentleman from the East ain’t never seen the like.” “They stopped the ears more times than you could counton your fingers by gitting on the., tracks an’ maltin' them slippery, actin’ like so much grease. An’ onct -gentlemen, you nay not believe it, but it’s gospel truth—they pulled the bell an’ the engineer stopped the car stock still, (t were this a-way, for 1 were there ind see it myself. The conductor came into the car when it stopped, in’ he says, savs he: “ ‘Who pulled that bell rope?’ Everybody was scared, ’ceptme, an’ [spoke up an’ says: “ ‘The hoppers did it.’ “ ‘Don’t talk foolishness,’ says the conductor. ‘I don’t ’low no galoot to tend to my duties. When this train is stopped, I do it myself. Don’t none of you ever tetch that bell rope agin.’ “ Td like to see ennvone tetch it now,’ says 1, an’ I pin ted it out to aim weighted down with hoppersTts thick as a constrictor snake after it bad swallowed a calf, an’ the ear bell i-ringin like mad.” “ ‘Holy Moses,’ he says, and looked ?cairt, but it were a fact just the same Them hoppers - followed into the stage, and we sat there knee :leep in ’em. Scairt? No, not much to speak of. You see, them wasn't the seventeen-year locusts with a big “W” on their backs. These here critters wereleetle slim things, kind of a brown green, but Lord, how they did eat things! We folks had skeeter nets in our winders, and in two minutes after them hoppers struck us it hung in strips and threads, an’ they were swarmin’ round the house like flies.” “If they come agin.” said Long Jim, “I’d jest fill up every growin’ thing with pizen, an’ then when the hoppers were all dead I'd burn ’em and use ’em for fertilizers.” “Yer mought,” said the man on the cracker box with a thoughtful look, “if they sent cards a-savin’ they was cornin’. But when they steal on ver like a thief in the night, you carn't most always carkerlate just, what you would do. I’m lay in’ for ’em this year, but they ain’t sent m no advance agent with plan of campaign, as yet.” And he enveloped himself in a blue haze of smoke that forbade liseussion.