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 

 same 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 

 got it. 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 entertainment 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 

 as a moral agentjsince it will make the sluggard hesitate to go to 



