t!
Plagues of Egypt!" he kept muttering. Now, Betty had been to school a
long time--I think it must have been as much as two whole years, which
is a very _long_ time for school and a very _short_ time for climbing
trees--now, Betty had been to school and knew better. She crept behind a
big beech-tree, but she stuck her little head out and said, in a
trembling voice:

"It was locusts, sir, wasn't it--and wild honey?"

Betty wasn't at all certain that any kind of honey could be a plague.

"It was locusts, child--yes, you're right," answered the old man.
"Locusts it was; but you eat wild honey."

Betty came out from behind the tree and whispered, "You eat them
_both_?"

"So men did in the Bible," said Ben Gile, and washing his sugar-pails,
and putting his maple sugar camp--a very sweet place for a little girl
to be when there are still piles of maple sugar packed away on the
shelves--in order for the summer.

In all her short life Betty had never known another old man like him. In
the winter he taught school; in spring he made maple sugar; in summer he
was guiding about the ponds or looking up into the trees most of the
time; and in the fall he cut wood before he went back to teaching; but
what was oddest of all to Betty was that he knew the squirrels and deer
and rabbits as well as he seemed to know little girls or little boys.
There was a story told in those woods about his taming even a trout so
that one morning it hopped out of the water and followed him everywhere
he went--hop, hop, flop behind him. And in the evening, as Ben Gile and
his tame trout were passing by the pond again, the trout fell in and was
drowned. But, dear me, that is a fish story, and you mustn't believe any
fish stories whatever except those your father tells! Still, if your
grandpa is fond of fishing, you may believe his fish stories, too.

[Illustration:
_A._ A locust.
_B._ Cast-off skin of a young locust.]

Betty came out farther from behind the tree. "Please, sir, do _you_ eat
grasshoppers?"

"Not yet, my dear." The old man's eyes twinkled. "I knew a little boy
once"--Betty was wondering whether this old man had ever been a little
boy himself--"I knew a little boy once who wasn't afraid to swallow even
a caterpillar, but I think that little boy never thought of eating a
grasshopper." The old man shook his head gravely. "No, not a
grasshopper."

"Please, sir," said Betty, coming right up to the bucket he was washing
in the brook-