From Farm Spies, How the Boys Investigated Field Crop Insects by A. F. Conradi, and W. A. Thomas; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916; pp. 79-104.
GRASSHOPPERS
WHEN Mrs. Emerson was sitting in the library of her home one June afternoon reading an interesting book, she heard a great noise outdoors. “Those are the Blake boys; I wonder what has happened,” she said to herself, and started reading again. In a little while the noise broke out again, much louder than before. The Blake boys lived next door to her and were very noisy at times, but this time it sounded to her as if something terrible had happened and that the boys were calling for help. She ran across the hall and through another room to that side of the house where the noise came from, to find out what the trouble could be. As she put one hand on the closed shutters to open them she called, “What is the matter, boys?”
The boys answered at the top of their voices, “Mrs. Emerson, Mrs. Emerson, don’t open that blind, and don’t look out!”
“Well, what can the trouble be?” she asked herself, nervously, and then called very loud: “What is the trouble? Is there a rattlesnake out there in the rosebushes?”
80“Mrs. Emerson, do not open,” came the reply again, “because there is an awful big hopper-grass on your window-shutter!”
( After Washburn, Minn. Exp. Sta. )
Fig. 42. — “Tthere is an awful big hopper-grass on your window-shutter !”
“Is that all?” said Mrs. Emerson, giving a big sigh of relief; and, bursting into a laugh, she returned to her book. She could not get over the funny side of it, and every little while during the afternoon she would burst out laughing. When her boy John came home and saw her he thought she must be reading a very funny story.
Will and Freddie Blake were raised in the city and, of course, did not know much about grasshoppers except what they had read in their story-books. It was, therefore, not surprising that, when they saw an unusually big one, they should be just a little scared.
Their father had been reared on the farm and knew most of the common insects and other animals. As a boy he had watched the bumblebee make her home in an old mouse-nest; he had seen the mud-daubers build their mud-nests on the rafters in the garrets; and he had often noticed and watched the squirming in manure heaps of maggots that made 81 house-flies and stable-flies. He could have told the boys about the big grasshoppers which they in their excitement had called hopper-grass, but he was not at home.
About a week after they had scared Mrs. Emerson, Willie was pulling weeds in the garden and he saw a large number of grasshoppers eating on their sweet corn.
Fig. 43. — “He saw a large number of grasshoppers eating on their sweet corn.”
He stopped and sat very still for a long time, watching them. “What big mouths they have; I wonder why they have to be so big?” he asked himself. He talked to one of the grasshoppers, saying: “If my mouth was as big as yours according to the size of my body, what a sight I should be. 82 It would be terrible, and everybody would be afraid of me. I tell you what people would say when they looked at me; they would say, ‘That boy is a frightful looking thing; I always thought that Frank Stevens’s bulldog had an ugly mug, but it is nothing to that of Willie Blake,’ he, he, he,” he laughed.
Just then he saw something that took his attention from that grasshopper; at the edge of the garden he saw another grasshopper sitting quietly with its abdomen, or rear half of the body, halfway in the ground. He crept away quietly and called Freddie, saying, “Freddie, come here and look what happened to one of the grasshoppers.”
Freddie came and they both looked. “He is stuck fast in the ground, Freddie,” said Willie.
( After Riley. )
Fig. 44. — “He is stuck fast in the ground.”
“Why, Freddie, he surely is; poor old long-legs, I wonder how that happened.”
Just then their father came to the house and the boys called him. He came, and after taking a good look, said, “What is the matter with that grasshopper do you think?”
“We do not know,” Freddie answered. “The poor thing is stuck in a hole there, but how did he get in? Do you suppose that it is an ant-hole?”
83“No, boys,” the father explained, “that grasshopper made that hole and is laying eggs. Grasshoppers lay their eggs in the ground, and the hole in which they are placed they make themselves by means of prongs they have at the rear end of the body.” Picking up another grasshopper he showed the boys the prongs and the way they are used for digging.
( After Riley. )
Fig. 45. — “That grasshopper made that hole and is laying eggs.”
“The thing for you to do know, boys, is to watch these grasshoppers this afternoon and find some more that are laying. You can then mark the spots and you can dig some of them up to-morrow and see how they look. If you will then take good care of the eggs, you will have a chance to see them hatch and you can tell your boy friends how the little grasshoppers come into the world,” the father told them.
That entire afternoon the boys spent in the garden watching the grasshoppers. They saw three others laying. They marked the spots very carefully, as their father had told them, so that they would be 84 able to find them again the next day. “Hello, Pete,” Freddie called to the old family horse which stood near by looking at the boys across the garden fence. “Pete, what are you looking so grave about? You could not have heard what father said when he was here in the garden some time ago. If you had seen us watching and pitying an old grasshopper for having gotten fast in an ant-burrow when it was merely laying eggs, you could not stand there and look as sober as you do.” The boys had a good laugh over what they had nearly forgotten; and, answering their mother’s call, they went to the house.
“I am glad that father has forgotten about it,” Willie said as they were passing through the garden gate.
“So am I,” remarked Freddie.
After supper that evening their father asked, “Did you find any more grasshoppers stuck fast in ant-holes, boys?” The boys, after a rather sheepish laugh, told what they had seen since their father left them in the afternoon. Freddie, it seems, had paid especial attention to the food of the insects. “I never could have believed that anything on earth could be as big a glutton as Mr. Stevens’s bull terrier. I have seen him gulp down a plate of potatoes so fast that I have often wondered how he did it. I thought he was about to bust when he turned around and gave a large piece of an old ham, 85 which Mrs. Stevens had thrown out, exactly the same treatment, and within five minutes afterwards I saw him punished for stealing and eating a loaf of corn bread. I tell you that the terrier is not in the same class as the grasshoppers. I watched them when I should have been pulling weeds. I could not help it, because I fell into watching them before I knew it.”
“There is not a plant in our garden which they failed to sample,” interrupted Willie.
“If you call that sampling, Willie, then I should like to see them eating in earnest. They our stripping our sweet corn, and leaving nothing but ribs to our cabbage. They are chewing everything to pieces, and they do not seem to give the weeds any more consideration than our garden plants. It seems that they prefer the young tender buts, but when they are eaten it does not seem to worry them any, — at lest not judging from the way they look.”
“And did you notice how much they can spit?” Willie interrupted. “It is as brown as tobacco juice, and where it all comes from is a puzzle to me. Look on my sleeve here and you can see the brown spots; I wonder if it will wash out. When you catch one he sets his big mouth to work, and with all the parts in action it reminds me of a mowing machine thrown into gear. His saliva runs over your fingers and you need not figure that he will do this 86 for a little while and then stop, but he keeps it up until at last you just have to let him go.”
“If I could spit like a grasshopper I would soon stop those cats screeching below my window every night,” said Freddie.
“How would you do it?” the others asked.
“How would I do it?” Freddie asked soberly. “I would just turn over in bed with my face towards the window and spit. That would settle it, because it would drown every cat engaged in that choir.” At this they all laughed.
Their father interrupted, “Maybe the grasshoppers are like some people. When they get nervous they allow their jaws to exceed the speed limit, when you had better keep your distance if you don’t want to get into a shower-bath.”
Freddie whispered something to Willie, which set the boys laughing with an uproar.
“What are you laughing at, boys?” their father asked with a knowing smile.
Willie answered, “Freddie said that you must have been thinking about old Mr. Bill Grimes down by the creek.”
This created another general laugh, after which they all retired.
The next morning at about ten o’clock Mr. Blake saw the boys coming from the tool-shed; Willie carried a spade and Freddie a pickaxe over his shoulder.
87“What are you going to do; what are you going to do? Are you planning to dig a well?” asked Mr. Blake.
“No,” Willie replied, “we want to dig up some of those grasshopper eggs,” — and then they stopped as if stunned, watching their father laughing. He almost doubled up several times, and the boys wondered if he would ever get over it. When at last he seemed to conquer his laughing, a glance at the boys, armed with spade and pickaxe, would set him off again, and soon the boys found themselves joining in the laugh, although they did not know what it was about.
“Boys,” their father said at last, “when you want to pick your teeth after dinner, would you take a fence-rail? If you want to shoot a squirrel, would you use a cannon? The only tool you need for finding the grasshopper eggs is the small blade of a pocket knife, because the eggs are not more than a fourth of an inch below the top of the earth. Put those tools back where you got them and don’t be borrowing trouble.”
The boys did what he told them. When they had disappeared in the tool-shed, they looked about as sheepish as ever any boys looked.
“Freddie,” said Willie, “we might have known that those eggs could not be very deep, especially when you consider the size of the insects.”
88“I did know it, of course, but I just forgot to stop and think about it,” answered Freddie with disgust.
They went to the garden and began digging very carefully with their knife-blades and soon uncovered the eggs.
Fig. 46. — “They were little, reddish, podlike bodies.”
They were little, reddish, podlike bodies laid in a little earthen chamber which had been made by the female with the prongs which their father had pointed out to them the day before. They found the eggs a solid mass and adhered to each other as if glued. When they noticed how nicely the eggs were covered over with soil so that no trace of the chamber could be seen on the surface of the soil, they were glad that they had marked the place as their father had told them. They counted the eggs and found that there were ninety-four in the mass.
Fig. 47. — “In a little earthen chamber.”
“They are good layers,” remarked Willie.
“Yes, they are,” Freddie agreed, “and I do not understand how any of our Plymouth-rock hens can look at a grasshopper without blushing. If those old hens would only lay ninety-four eggs at one sitting, we could go into the poultry business.”
The boys talked the matter over and decided 89 that they would put these eggs in a tumbler so that they might see the little grasshoppers hatch. “We want to see them come out of the eggshell,” they said. This done, they tried to find other grasshoppers in the act of laying. They worked all over the garden and found four more egg-chambers, and every one of them was near the edge of the garden. They noticed that they were not laying in the ground that was cultivated and concluded that they must have wise little heads because they would not risk to lay their eggs where they would be in danger of being uncovered by the plow or hoe. After the places had all been carefully marked they put little cages over them just as their father had explained to them. Their mother did not have enough cheesecloth for all the cages, so they made as many as they could from this material and used muslin for the rest. Their row of cages looked pretty, and many people passing the garden stopped and looked at them. They felt proud when people asked questions about them, but old Mr. Grimes made them angry when he said: “What foolishness is that, boys, putting up a cemetery in the garden? Those little white cages look just like headstones. I would not have them on my place.” Although this made them rosy, they could not help looking at each other and grinning, because they recalled their father’s remark about nervous people.
90“How soon will the eggs hatch?” the boys asked.
“I do not believe that they will hatch before the warm weather sets in next spring. They will stay where they are throughout the winter. At least, I hope they will,” their father continued, “but I am afraid your cages are in the way when I plow up the garden.”
“But you will not plow the garden until spring, will you?”
“Not on the left side where the cabbage and other winter vegetables are, but the side where your cages are will be plowed, because we could not afford to let that land lie that way all winter.”
“Why not?” the boys asked, very much worried that their cages might be disturbed.
“Because,” their father explained, “part of it has grown to weeds and they give shelter to insects and diseases. Those weeds will die when cold weather begins, and if there are no living plants on that soil to take up and hold the plant-food, it will wash and leach away. Part of the garden has the soil bare, and this would wash during the wet weather. Now, we will not allow any of those things to happen because it would be very bad farm-practice. I am going to plow that side and sow it to vetch or clover. It would be called a cover-crop, and will prevent the soil from washing. Few insects can feed on such 91 plants, and by keeping the weeds down it would be a cleaning-crop at the same time.”
“Why do you use vetch or clover? Could you not sow oats?”
“Yes, I could, and it would do about what vetch and clover do, but oats has not the little nodules on the roots which contain the little bacteria that have the power of changing the nitrogen of the air so that plants can use it for food. It is this nitrogen that makes up the ammonia in the fertilizer and is the most expensive part. When I grow these plants I need less of that kind of fertilizer and there I am not only saving money, but when I plow this clover crop under next spring I add a lot of nice vegetable matter to the soil which decays, making plant food, making the soil hold water better, and allowing the air to circulate through the soil. Soils having these conditions are most productive.”
“That is very interesting,” the boys remarked.
“When I plow this fall I will also uncover the grasshopper eggs that may be in the ground and they will die during the winter. Of course, the greatest numbers of eggs are along the edge of the garden. They prefer to lay their eggs in slightly sandy soil along hedges, roadways, and other places where no cultivation occurs. Where your cages are placed the greatest number of eggs are found, and I want to work that soil to kill them. I don’t know what we had better do with the cages.”
92The boys knew that their father would often say things with a sober face even when he was joking, and they were not sure what he would do in this case. The truth is that he would never have allowed these cages to be disturbed, as he was glad that the boys were studying the grasshoppers. The next day he had forgotten about this, and did not know that the boys remembered it and were talking it over every little while to find some plan by which they could keep their father from plowing up the land where the cages were placed.
One afternoon they visited their old friend Captain Shelby and, among other things, they told him about the danger threatening their breeding cages. Captain Shelby knew Mr. Blake well, and was sure that he was merely joking when he talked to the boys, but being a wag, he tried to help the boys with a scheme that would make their father keep away from the cages with his plow.
“Boys, I tell you,” he said, “this is the time of the year to plant turnips, and I never saw anybody that liked them so much as your father. I have plenty of seed and you can sprinkle it all around the cages and rake it with a garden rake. You can also sow a strip two feet wide on that side of the cages farthest away from the fence. The seed will come up, and when your pa gets ready to plow, he will see the turnips and he will not plow them up.”
93The boys went home with the turnip seed in their pockets, and the next morning when their father had gone to town they sowed it. Mr. Blake was busy with his corn-crop and so he did not get back to the garden for nearly three weeks. One morning he decided to plow the garden. As he went through the gate the boys followed him and when he saw the turnips he was greatly surprised.
“What is this?” he asked.
The boys explained that they had sowed turnips there because they thought he liked them.
“I do,” answered Blake, “but where did you get the seed?”
“From Captain Shelby,” they answered.
A pleased smile crept over his face as he said: “I see through it now. That is a game of yours, and the Captain helped you. Boys,” he continued, “I would never have disturbed your grasshopper cages, but I am glad that you sowed the turnips, and even if I had intended to plow that ground, your game would have caused me to change my mind.”
The boys watched their tumbler under the old apple tree and the cages by the garden fence, hoping that the eggs might yet hatch before the cold weather set in. But September passed and October came with its colors of russet, gold, and red. The goldenrods and the frost-flowers covered the earth, and the cornfields rustled in the autumn breezes.
94“Willie,” Freddie said at last, “I hope they will not hatch.”
“Why?” snapped Willie.
“Because it is just as father said,” answered Freddie; “he said if they hatched now, they would make the greatest mistakes of their lives. It seems to me it would be their first as well as their last mistake, because they could not live long, as winter is almost on us. In our reader it says that in those sections of our country where they have very mild winters, they may be found at any time of the year, but I am sure they could not live through the kind of winters we have here. I think that they had better stay where they are, under the ground in their eggshells, and if they have any sense they will do so.”
Freddie’s idea about this matter did not cause Willie to lose hope, but when December came with a snow-flurry, he was satisfied that there would be no hatching till spring. Often during the winter when the ground was frozen and sleet beat against the window-panes, they would talk about the grasshopper eggs in the cold ground in the garden. The night following January 22 was the coldest of the winter. A light snow had fallen and the wind blew bitter cold. The boys had to retire to a cold room for the night and this they could not enjoy, no matter how hard they tried.
“I wish I had just a little of the grit of those 95 grasshopper eggs so that this would be easier,” said Freddie.
“So do I,” Willie agreed.
With short days and daily school-work, time passed rapidly and they might have forgotten about their eggs in the cages, but one balmy morning their attention was attracted by the high notes of a Kentucky cardinal. “Cheo-cheo-cheo-cheo,” he repeated over and over from his high perch in the tree-tops, and it filled the boys with a longing to be out-doors. They were sure that spring had come and that they might expect their grasshopper eggs to hatch at any moment. This was on the morning of March 20, and being Saturday and no school, they had a chance to see what they had been waiting for so long. That day they saw many young grasshoppers come out from the eggs and sit wondering at the great world about them.
The boys put into the tumbler whatever green vegetation they could find, and in a day or two they all began to feed. The tiny little insects resembled the full-grown grasshoppers except that they had no wings. For a period of twelve days they did not change except that they grew larger.
“This subjects is getting to be so dry that it is no longer interesting. They just eat and grow a little and that is all,” Willie said.
On the thirteenth morning after hatching something 96 did happen that made Willie feel sorry for his remark. One of the grasshopper had fastened his little feet firmly to a leaf and sat so still that the boys thought he was sick. After a while they saw the skin split over his back, and before noon the insect dropped helplessly to the ground, leaving his outgrown skin hanging on the leaf.
“Whatever this is, it seems to make him feel bad. You see he does not feed like the others,” they said.
In an hour, or maybe a little longer, the new skin had hardened and the young grasshopper joined the others, and seemed to be extra hungry.
“I was mistaken,” said Freddie, “because I see now that he feels better for having lost his skin. Who would have thought that an animal can lose its skin and live?” continued Freddie. “That is a great deal more than you can do. I wonder if papa knows about this.”
So they went and told their father about it, and he explained to them that this is called molting. He assured them that if they kept their eyes open, they would see the others do likewise, and that all grasshoppers do it a number of times.
By this time they saw young grasshopper everywhere, in their cages, along the garden-fence, and along the roadside. When walking over the short grass they could see hundreds jumping in every direction. They had no trouble now to find plenty 97 of them to watch. They found that they molted about every two weeks, and after the fifth time a full-grown grasshopper with full-grown wings would appear.
In the meantime the boys learned that the grasshoppers had begun to do very much damage to the farm crops and gardens of that section and people spoke very unkindly about them. The little hordes of grasshoppers that had hatched along the edges of fields, in pastures and in waste places, had grown and spread to near-by fields, so that some farmers were worried about their crops. It was getting worse every day, and the boys lost their love for these creatures. They began to look upon them as enemies to every man. John Conelly said that they ate every kind of plant that came within their reach, and he had even seen them gnaw the wooden parts of his mowing-machine. George Hyde said they had nibbled on the hard handle of his garden fork which had been left in an upright position in the garden for several days.
The boys became very bitter against the insects which they had given such protection and sympathy during the winter. One day they noticed that the food in one of their cages had been eaten or dried up long ago.
“Say, Freddie,” Willie called, “we forgot to feed them in this cage and they must surely be dead.”
98After careful examination they found some of the insects still alive, one eating another grasshopper.
“This is the limit ! ! !” cried Willie. “They are cannibals. Why, Freddie, there is no knowing what they might not be guilty of.”
“To kill them you would have to put one in a cage without any kind of plants or other insects,” said Freddie.
“That would not do,” retorted Willie; “they would gnaw the wood. It would be necessary to put one in a metal cage.”
“There is one use we could put that old pile of tin cans to,” said Freddie.
“What do you mean?” asked Willie. “Put a bug in each tin can and let it starve?”
“Yes,” replied Freddie. “If I got near enough to catch him I would ‘lambast’ him with a stick and it would beat your method.”
“What beats me is the way they live,” explained Willie. “They don’t live like common folks, but they remind me of those rich people just outside of Waverly. They eat a late breakfast and then eat again in the middle of the afternoon, while the working-man eats three square meals a day. These grasshoppers prefer the tender buds and leaves and remain near the tops of plants from early morning till about ten o’clock; then they leave for the lower portions of the plants and remain there till 99 about three in the afternoon. During rainy weather and cold nights they remain on or near the ground. They have strong wings but fly very little.”
On July Fourth, the neighbors of that section had all gone to the picnic in Miller’s grove. There were races, speeches, and fireworks. During the afternoon a number of farmers had gathered under the old elm tree near the well and were talking about the hard times on account of the large numbers of grasshoppers. Most of them believed that it was the worst grasshopper year they had ever seen. William Carnes listened to what they said, and when he began talking it acted on that group of farmers like a whirlwind on a pile of dead leaves. Some walked away in disgust, others stopped and looked at Mr. Carnes in surprise, that such a good man and splendid farmer should talk so. It is well that some stayed, because when evening came some of them had different ideas about farming, and these were better than any they had before.
“There are not enough grasshoppers, and that is what I am sorry about,” he said. It was this remark that had that lightning effect on that group. Those who stayed looked at Mr. Carnes and thundered, “What is that ! ! !”
“You fellows make me tired. I can see how the grasshopper s can be terrible pests in the West and South where the country is thinly settled and the 100 wild and waste lands are not yet brought under cultivation. Right here we are in one of the oldest sections of the country and few people have more than they could handle properly if they would.”
A general dispute had arisen by this time, in which everyone wanted to be heard, and it sounded something like the cackling of a flock of geese that had been suddenly disturbed.
“Be still there, gentlemen,” called Jim Ferguson. “I have never known a time when Will could not back his judgment, and I bet he can do it this time. In spite of all the grasshoppers, he has made about as good crops as if the grasshoppers had not been here. We all know that he is a farmer in a class by himself, and I want to hear him explain what he means by saying that he wished there had been many more of them.”
The group listened, and then quieted in order to give William a chance to explain.
Mr. Carnes continued: “Many of you still farm as the Pilgrims did when they landed in New England nearly three hundred years ago. In early days it was believed that when a boy was not fit for anything else he was the boy to stay on the farm. That time has passed, but maybe you never noticed it. Farming, to-day, requires an entirely different class of men from what it did a hundred years ago. We can no more afford to have a sleepy-head at the 101 head of a farm than to have a sleeping man at the throttle of the engine of a fast train. Farming is a business which requires education, training, and skill. You do not use foresight. We had a severe grasshopper outbreak last year, and you had every reason to suspect that there would be one this year. You never thought of watching where they laid most of their eggs. You noticed last spring that they first appeared in large numbers in pastures, along hedges, roadsides, and in waste places, but you never tried to do anything to stop them. When they had spread over your crops and destroyed them, you sat down and grumbled about the hard luck and the hard times.”
“Now, Will, tell us just what you did this summer to keep those pesky things out of your crops,” Jim requested.
“I did many things this summer, Jim,” Will explained. “Many of them I expected to do, but equally as many came up unexpectedly. You see a farmer has to watch everything on the place and do what is necessary from time to time, even if he has not planned it that way. I do not farm by rule. So, the first thing I did was to have as little waste land as possible. I watched the grasshoppers last season, and during the winter I knew where they would come from in case of an outbreak. The absence of much of the waste land gave me fewer grasshoppers 102 to start with in the spring. I do not leave my stubble and rubbish on the fields in the winter, but I plow them and plant cover-crops on them. I pull the stumps because they are not only wasting land and very inconvenient, but they are among the worst things to offer winter shelter for various pests. Sometimes I cannot do all the plowing I want to do, and then I disk or drill the cover crops between the rows. I do not let my oat and wheat stubble stand after harvest, but disk them and plant the land in peas. This gives me hay, adds nitrogen to the soil, and protects my field from washing and drying. When I see that the grasshoppers are very abundant, I keep myself in readiness, and by the time they advance to the crop I have that crop sprayed. It often is necessary only to spray a strip on that side where the attack will begin. The chief damage is done by the full-grown insects, and we must act while they are still young. I find by experience that whatever you do it is best to do it when they are still young.”
“You said spraying; what do you spray?” one asked.
“I use arsenate of lead mainly; some use Paris green*; and in some sections they use arsenite of soda made up with water and syrup. The arsenite of soda is cheaper and acts very quickly, but in our moist, warm climate of the South I am afraid to 103 use it on some crops for fear that I will burn the leaves. Arsenate of lead is safe, and whenever I am in the least in doubt I use it.”
“How about London purple?” others asked.
“It is more uncertain as to burning the leaves than Paris green, but I use it sometimes when the grasshoppers are confined to weeds, which I do not mind killing.”
“How does it kill the grasshoppers?” some asked.
“It poisons them. All the sprays I mentioned are poisonous and must be handled with care.”
“How do you put the spray on?” Jim asked.
“I have a spray pump. I can use it for my orchard or garden and I have a row spraying attachment which I can use in spraying field crops or potatoes.”
“If you sprayed meadows or pastures, should you not be afraid of poisoning the stock that eats the grass or hay?” a number of farmers asked.
“For treating meadows or pastures I use the bran mash or grasshopper mixture, made strictly according to directions. On alfalfa I scatter this broadcast. You must not forget the lemon or orange juice, for this helps very much to attract the insects. In small pastures this can be put out on shingles so that it can be removed, for in this way it will not poison cattle. When this happens to be near the home, poultry must be kept in the pen or they will eat it. In the West they use grasshopper catchers 104 on pastures and on field-crops. I have not used one, but my brother, who lives in Utah, has told me about them and he says ‘They sure catch them.’ ”
“I am going to watch where the grasshoppers stay on my place over winter,” said Jim as the company broke up.
“So will I,” said several others as they walked down the road.
Johnny Parker had sat throughout the conversation and he took in everything that was said as a sponge takes water. He had not said one word; he did not have time, because he was listening as hard as he could. As he started to go he said to Mr. Carnes, “William, I am coming over to your house the first chance I get to look at your pump.”
“All right, Johnny, come over and I will show it to you,” Mr. Carnes replied.
Elf.Ed. Notes
* As the text says, Paris green was an early insecticide. It made it’s way into a joke book, The Encyclopedia of Comedy, by J. Melville Janson, 1897; page 204:
ROACHES
MR. A. — I moved since I saw you, and the house is full of roaches. I told the landlord about it and he told me to try paris green.
MR. B. — Did you do it?
MR. A. — I’ve taken three doses and it don’t seem to do any good.