"I'm surprised to hear the question! The only true colour--the only
proper one--is OUR colour, to be sure. A lovely pea-green is the
precise shade on which to found aristocratic distinction. But then
we are liberal;--we associate with the Moths, who are gray; with the
Butterflies, who are blue-and-gold coloured; with the Grasshoppers,
yellow and brown; and society would become dreadfully mixed if it
were not fortunately ordered that the Crickets are black as jet. The
fact is, that a class to be looked down upon is necessary to all
elegant society; and if the Crickets were not black, we could not
keep them down, because, as everybody knows, they are often a great
deal cleverer than we are. They have a vast talent for music and
dancing; they are very quick at learning, and would be getting to the
very top of the ladder if we once allowed them to climb. But their
being black is a convenience; because, as long as we are green and
they black, we have a superiority that can never be taken from us.
Don't you see now?"

"Oh yes, I see exactly," said the colonel.

"Now that Keziah Cricket, who just came in here, is quite a musician,
and her old father plays the violin beautifully;--by the way, we
might engage him for our orchestra."


And so Miss Katy's ball came off, and the performers kept it up from
sundown till daybreak, so that it seemed as if every leaf in the
forest were alive. The Katy-dids and the Mosquitoes, and the
Locusts, and a full orchestra of Crickets made the air perfectly
vibrate, insomuch that old Parson Too-Whit, who was preaching a