14

13.

that before. Pretty soon we heard a sound that sounded like hail
on the tin roofs of the houses. Grasshoppers as big as my thumb were
in droves, masses, clouds, and in short, everywhere you looked you
saw grasshoppers. They darkened the sun for longer than an hour. Hot
winds had brought them in from New Mexico. These hot dry winds and
the insects had killed the vegetation in a section of New Mexico and
by natural instinct, assisted by the wind, they migrated toward the
east.

"On a mischievous impulse, me and Matthew tried to put on a
musical entertainment one night, at a place that was a good ways out of
town. It was the sort of place that people visited on horseback and
practically every visitor kept one hand on a shooting iron. There
was plenty of noise and shooting in fun, particularly as the entertain-
ments at those places broke up and the guests began to leave. It was
all very exciting to me. I was not accustomed to things like that.
Me and Matthew were just waiting for time to begin our show that night,
when some of the crowd started shooting out the lights in the hall.
When they stopped shooting the entire place was dark and then they
left. Me and Matthew had hid behind the organ and were all right,
but we were wondering about our dog, for he hadn't come inside with
us and we hadn't heard him bark since the shooting began. We went
out and found him, and he helped us find the horses. At first we
thought the revelers had stolen our horses, but they were grazing in
a nearby field.

1699