The cloud seemed to stretch out forever. For miles around, people stared up at the sky. Farmers put down their pitchforks, and women turned away from their stoves. Children stopped doing their chores.
What was that cloud?
It wasn’t gray like a thundercloud or funnel-shaped like a tornado.
The edges of the cloud sparkled. As it came closer, the day turned dark. Eerie sounds echoed through the air. Whir. Click, click, click. Buzz. It sounded like thousands of enormous scissors snipping at the sky.
The cloud filled the sky over the Ingalls family farm. And then . . . Thud.
Something hit the ground. Laura stared in surprise. It was a grasshopper. It was greenish brown and an inch long, with spindly legs and bulging eyes.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
More grasshoppers fell to the ground. Others hit Laura on the head. Had these grasshoppers somehow been swept into that dark cloud?
No. Grasshoppers weren’t in the cloud. Grasshoppers were the cloud. It was made up of millions of bugs—and now the bugs were swooping down from the sky.
The sound became a deafening roar. Grasshoppers buzzed in Laura’s ears and crawled across her eyes. She tried to swat them away, but there were too many. Laura pressed her lips together to keep bugs from flying into her mouth.
The entire family was caught in a swarm of bugs—and so were thousands of other people across the prairie.