"Now, these kind of critters, they're as smart as human bein's if
you only knowed it. And that was enough. The katydid, she said she
felt pins and needles in her back whenever Ant Red looked at her; and
the snake-feeders said she shot arries at 'em when they was flyin'
over a craw-fish hole. All the beetles and wood-bugs complained of
bein' hit with witch-bells, and the more Ant Red acted careful the
more they had ag'in her.

"Well, the spider he told her to come into his den and live, and
she'd be safe from hangin', but she wasn't sure in her mind about
that. Even the grasshopper jumped out of her way, and bunged his eyes
out at her; as if she could harm such a great big gray lubber as him!
She was gittin' pretty lonesome when she concluded to try a projic."

"What's a projic?" inquired Robert Day.

"Why, it's a--p'epperation, or--a plan of some kind," explained Zene.

"So she invites Big Ant Black and all her family, and the spider and
all his family, and the beetles and bugs and all their families, and
the snake-feeders and Miss Katydid for young folks, and don't leave
out a neighbor, to an apple-bee right inside the orchard fence.

"So it was pleasant weather, and they all come and brung the babies,
the old grasshopper skippin' along as nimble and steppin' on the
shawl that was wrapped round his young one. And the snake-feeders
they helped Miss Katydid over the lowest fence-rail, and here come
Big Ant Black with such a string behind her it looked like a funeral
instead of a family percession and she twisted her neck from side to