铁路轰鸣着，颠簸着，卡车颠簸着。太阳，像一个红色的弹子球，挂在西边的天空上;角落里那个目光狂野的人不知疲倦地说着这个可怕的故事，讲述着旧日的故事，讲述着那群本该养鸭子的人的故事。“唉，在这片土地上并不是一件快乐的事，透支会把你打倒的;兔子很好地控制了局面;但是一个男人最难以忍受的就是那个说“我早告诉过你了!”你应该这样做，难道你不知道吗?“——我可以给那样的人设个饵。“蚱蜢在1991年袭击了我们，他们留下的东西——嗯，这不是豪华的。可是，一个爱发牢骚、爱挑毛病的狗娘养的家伙，借了些钱给我们屯田——我说他们把我们的草都吃光了——他说，‘你们经营得太差了;你有权利养一些鸭子!“养了几只鸭子!”这个地方是白色的! Wherever you went you had to tread On grasshoppers guzzlin' day and night; And then with a swoosh they rose in flight, If you didn't look out for yourself they'd fly Like bullets into your open eye And knock it out of the back of your head. "There isn't a turkey or goose or swan, Or a duck that quacks, or a hen that clucks, Can make a difference on a run When a grasshopper plague has once begun; 'If you'd finance us,' I says, 'I'd buy Ten thousand emus and have a try; The job,' I says, 'is too big for ducks! "'You must fetch a duck when you come to stay; A great big duck -- a Muscovy toff -- Ready and fit,' I says, 'for the fray; And if the grasshoppers come our way You turn your duck into the lucerne patch, And I'd be ready to make a match That the grasshoppers eat his feathers off!" "He came to visit us by and by, And it just so happened one day in spring A kind of cloud came over the sky -- A wall of grasshoppers nine miles high, And nine miles thick, and nine hundred wide, Flyin' in regiments, side by side, And eatin' up every living thing. "All day long, like a shower of rain, You'd hear 'em smackin' against the wall, Tap, tap, tap, on the window pane, And they'd rise and jump at the house again Till their crippled carcasses piled outside. But what did it matter if thousands died -- A million wouldn't be missed at all. "We were drinkin' grasshoppers -- so to speak -- Till we skimmed their carcasses off the spring; And they fell so thick in the station creek They choked the waterholes all the week. There was scarcely room for a trout to rise, And they'd only take artificial flies -- They got so sick of the real thing. "An Arctic snowstorm was beat to rags When the hoppers rose for their morning flight With the flapping noise like a million flags: And the kitchen chimney was stuffed with bags For they'd fall right into the fire, and fry Till the cook sat down and began to cry -- And never a duck or fowl in sight. "We strolled across to the railroad track -- Under a cover beneath some trucks, I sees a feather and hears a quack; I stoops and I pulls the tarpaulin back -- Every duck in the place was there, No good to them was the open air. 'Mister,' I says, 'There's your blanky ducks!'"