ber to have ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not 
the way home, grabs his bundle, and starts. He goes through the 
game adventures he had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend 
comes along. Evidently the friend remembers that a last year’s 
grasshopper leg is a very noble acquisition, and enquires where he 
gotit. Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he 
did get it, but thinks he got it around here somewhere. Evidently 
the friend contracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a 
judgment peculiarly antic (pun not intentional) they take hold of 
‘opposite ends of that grasshopper’s leg and begin to tug with all 
their might in opposite directions. Presently they take a rest, and 
confer together. They decide that something is wrong, they can’t 
make out what. Then they go at it again, just as before. Same 
result. Mutual recriminations follow. Evidently each accuses the 
other of being an obstructionist. They warm up, and the dispute 
ends in a fight. They lock themselves together, and chaw each 
_other’s jaws for a while; then they roll and tumble on the ground 
till one loses a horn or a leg and has to haul off for repairs. They 
make up and go to work again in the same old insane way, but the 
crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may, the other one 
drags off the booty and him at the end of it. Instead of giving up, 
he hangs on, and gets his skin bruised against every obstruction 
that comes in the way. By-and-by, when that grasshopper leg has 
been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally 
dumped about the spot where it originally lay. The two perspiring 
ants inspect it thoughtfully, and decide that dried grasshopper legs 
are a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a 
“different direction to see if he can’t find an old nail or something 
else that is heavy enough to afford entertaimment and at the same 
time valueless enough to make an ant want to own it. Science has 
recently discovered that the ant does not lay up anything for winter 
use. This will knock him out of literature to some extent. He 
does not work, except when people are looking, and only then when 
the observer has a green, naturalistic look, and seems to be taking 
notes. This amounts to deception, and will injure him for the 
Sunday schools. He has not judgment enough to know what is 
good to eat from what isn’t. This amounts to ignorance, and will 
impair the world’s respect for him. He cannot stroll around a stump 
and find his way home again. This amounty to idiocy, and once 
the damaging fact is established, thoughtful people will cease to 
look up to him, the sentimental will cease to fondle him. His 
vaunted industry is but a vanity and of no effect, since he never 
gets home with anything he starts with. This disposes of the last 
remnant of his reputation, and wholly destroys his main usefulness 
aga moral agent,since it will make the sluggard hesitate to go to 
