The story opens with Nick arriving by train at Seney, Michigan, to find that a fire has devastated the town, leaving "nothing but the rails and the burned-over country." While following a road leading away from the town, he stops on a bridge where he observes trout in the river below. After, he hikes up a hill and rests at a burned stump. While smoking a cigarette, he discovers an ash-blackened grasshopper crawling on his sock, and detaches it. His first spoken words in the story are "Go on, hopper .... Fly away somewhere."

The story opens with Nick arriving by train at Seney, Michigan, to find that a fire has devastated the town, leaving "nothing but the rails and the burned-over country." While following a road leading away from the town, he stops on a bridge where he observes trout in the river below. After, he hikes up a hill and rests at a burned stump. While smoking a cigarette, he discovers an ash-blackened grasshopper crawling on his sock, and detaches it. His first spoken words in the story are "Go on, hopper .... Fly away somewhere."

The story opens with Nick arriving by train at Seney, Michigan, to find that a fire has devastated the town, leaving "nothing but the rails and the burned-over country." While following a road leading away from the town, he stops on a bridge where he observes trout in the river below. After, he hikes up a hill and rests at a burned stump. While smoking a cigarette, he discovers an ash-blackened grasshopper crawling on his sock, and detaches it. His first spoken words in the story are "Go on, hopper .... Fly away somewhere."