XCAUGHT!
Whatever or whoever it was that had entered Chirpy Cricket’s home—the hole in the ground near Farmer Green’s barn—it caused him a terrible fright. It kept poking him in a most alarming fashion. Chirpy couldn’t move away from it, for his home was only big enough for himself alone. And since he didn’t care to share it with another, he soon made up his mind that there was only one thing for him to do. He would quit his house for the time being, with the hope of finding it empty later. Indeed Chirpy Cricket thought he would be lucky to escape in safety. Sohe scrambled up into the daylight, to be greeted with a shout and a pounce, both at the same time. And Chirpy Cricket saw, too late, that it was a creature much bigger than a hen that had captured him. It was Johnnie Green!
Of course Johnnie himself had not entered Chirpy’s underground home. What he had done was merely to run a straw into the hole where Chirpy lived and prod him with it until he came out.
“Aha!” said Johnnie Green as he looked at his prisoner, whom he held gingerly between a finger and a thumb. “Are you the rascal that keeps me awake at night with your everlasting noise?”
Chirpy Cricket never said a word.
“You make racket enough every night,” Johnnie told him. “Can’t you answer now when you’re spoken to?”
Still Chirpy Cricket made no reply. Hewaved his feelers frantically and tried to jump out of Johnnie Green’s grasp. But no matter how fast he moved his six legs, he couldn’t get away.
“You don’t seem to like me,” said his captor finally. “You don’t act as if you wanted to play with me.... What will you do for me if I let you go?”
But not a word did Chirpy Cricket say—not one single word!
“You’re a queer one,” Johnnie Green told him. “You might fiddle for me, at least—though I must say I don’t care for the tune you always play. I can get better music out of a cornstalk fiddle than I’ve ever heard from you or any of your family.”
Then, very carefully, Johnnie set Chirpy Cricket on the ground, with both his hands cupped closely over him, so he couldn’t jump away.
“Now, fiddle!” Johnnie Green cried. “Fiddle just once and I’ll let you go.”
Though Johnnie Green waited patiently for what seemed to him a long time, he heard nothing that sounded the least bit like fiddling. So at last he peeped between two fingers to see what the fiddler was doing. But Johnnie Green couldn’t see him. Little by little he lifted his hands. And to his great surprise there was nothing under them but grass—and beneath the grass a crack in the earth.
“Well! You’re a sly one!” Johnnie Green exclaimed. “You’ve crawled into that crack. And you may stay there, too, for all I care.” Johnnie jumped to his feet and moved away. And not until he had been gone some time did Chirpy Cricket make a sound. Then he played a few notes on his fiddle, just to see that it hadn’t been harmed.
XIA QUEER, NEW COUSIN
Chirpy Cricket was so fond of fiddling that sometimes he was the last of all the big Cricket family to stop making music and go home to bed. Now and then he lingered so long above the ground that the dawn caught him before he crept into his hole in the ground, beneath the straw. And one morning it was getting so light before he had played enough to suit him that he crawled into a crack in Farmer Green’s garden. It looked like a comfortable place to spend the day. And he thought it would be foolish for him to do much travelling at that hour, because therewas no telling when an early bird might spy—and pounce upon—him.
He found his retreat quite to his liking. Nothing had happened to disturb his rest. And if he had only had time to carry a few blades of grass into the crack, to eat between naps, Chirpy would have had nothing to wish for.
Late in the afternoon, however, a most unusual thing took place. Chirpy Cricket noticed a sound as of some one digging. It grew louder and louder as he listened. And it was not in the least like the scratching of a hen, looking for grubs and worms. This noise was deep down in the ground and like nothing Chirpy had ever heard.
He wished that he had not allowed himself to become so fond of fiddling. If he had cared less for it, he would have gone home in good season. But there he was in a crack in the garden! And he didn’tdare leave it because he had heard that the garden was a famous place for birds.
Chirpy Cricket was frightened. And when at last the loose earth near him began to quiver and even to crumble he was so scared that he didn’t know which way to move. The next instant a strange looking person stood before him. And for a few moments neither one of them said a word.
The newcomer was a big fellow, very long and with enormous legs. His front legs especially were short and powerful, with huge feet at the end of them. And yet, odd as the stranger was, Chirpy could not help noticing that somehow he had a look like the Cricket family.
“Well,” said the stranger at last, “you seem surprised. Perhaps you weren’t expecting callers.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Chirpy Cricket answeredin a voice that was faint from the fright he had had.
“But you’re glad to see me, I hope,” the stranger went on. “You know I’m related to you. You know I’m a sort of cousin of yours.”
“Is that so?” Chirpy Cricket cried. “I did think for a moment that there was a slight family resemblance. But the longer I look at you the queerer you seem. May I ask your name?”
“I’m Mr. Mole Cricket,” said the stranger. “And I don’t need to inquire who you are. You’re one of the well-known Field Cricket family.”
XIIAN UNDERGROUND CHAT
Chirpy Cricket was glad of one thing. Mr. Mole Crickettalkedquite pleasantly, for all he looked so frightful. When he dug his way through the dirt in Farmer Green’s garden and broke into the crack where Chirpy was hiding he had given Chirpy a terrible start.
“If you’re a cousin of mine—as you say—it’s strange that I’ve never happened to meet you before,” Chirpy told the newcomer.
“Not at all! Not at all!” Mr. Mole Cricket said. “I spend all my time underground. I’ve never been up in the open.”
“Don’t you go out at night?” Chirpy asked him.
“Never!” Mr. Mole Cricket declared. “I’ve lived my whole life in the dirt. And I like it too well to leave it.”
Chirpy Cricket thought his cousin was the queerest person he had ever met.
“How do you get anything to eat?” he inquired.
Mr. Mole Cricket seemed to consider that an odd question.
“Bless you!” he exclaimed. “There’s everything to eat in the ground—everything anybody could possibly want. Wherever I tunnel I find tender roots. You know Farmer Green grows fine vegetables here. Indeed that’s one reason I live under his garden.”
“If that’s one reason, what’s another?” Chirpy Cricket asked him. For Chirpy couldn’t help being curious about this new-foundcousin of his, who had such strange ways and who was even stranger to look upon.
He was obliging enough—was Mr. Mole Cricket. He was quite willing to answer any and all questions. It may be that he was glad of the chance to talk with somebody. Certainly it seemed to Chirpy Cricket that his cousin led a very lonely life. He explained to Chirpy that it was easy to dig in the garden, because its soil was loose. The ploughing in the spring, and the harrowing, as well as the hoeing that Farmer Green’s hired man did during the summer, kept the earth in fine condition for tunnelling. Of course, living beneath the surface as he did, Mr. Mole Cricket had no way of knowing why the garden soil was so nicely stirred up. He only knew that it was so. And that was quite enough for him.
Chirpy Cricket said that it was all very interesting to hear about. But he knew that he shouldn’t care to follow Mr. Mole Cricket’s manner of living. “I love to fiddle,” he said. “I simply must go abroad every pleasant night and make music.”
“But you don’t need to leave the dirt to fiddle!” Mr. Mole Cricket exclaimed. “I’m musical too. I often fiddle down in my house. I don’t know a better way of passing the time, when a person’s not digging or eating.”
“Won’t you play for me now?” Chirpy Cricket asked him.
Mr. Mole Cricket was more than willing to oblige. He began to fiddle at once. And the tune he played was as strange as he was. Chirpy Cricket did not like it at all. It seemed to him very mournful, a sort of sad, sad air, as if Mr. Mole Cricketwere bewailing his dismal life beneath the garden.
But of course Chirpy was too polite to tell that to his cousin. And when Mr. Mole Cricket asked him how he liked the tune, Chirpy replied that it was very, very interesting.
XIIIA QUESTION OF FEET
“Are you sure you’re a cousin of mine?” Chirpy Cricket inquired of Mr. Mole Cricket. “Don’t you think that perhaps you are mistaken? I’m almost certain you are.”
“No!” said Mr. Mole Cricket. “I can’t be wrong. Why do you ask me such a question?”
“Your forefeet”—Chirpy told him—“your forefeet are so big! I’ve always understood that all our family had small ones.”
Mr. Mole Cricket smiled.
“Don’t let the size of my feet troubleyou!” he replied. “I couldn’t be a Mole Cricket if my feet were like yours. You see, I use my forefeet for digging. And if they weren’t big and strong I never could burrow in this garden, nor anywhere else.”
Still Chirpy Cricket had his doubts.
“I’m inclined to believe,” he continued, “that you’re related to Grandfather Mole, and not to me. For your feet are very much like his.”
“Oh, no!” Mr. Mole Cricket cried. “And for pity’s sake don’t ever let Grandfather Mole hear you say that! He’d be so angry that he’d eat me, as likely as not. You see, he objects to my name. He says I have no right to call myself Mr. Mole Cricket. But that’s the name my family has always had. And I can’t very well change it.”
The poor fellow acted so alarmed thatChirpy Cricket hastened to promise him that he would never mention his likeness to Grandfather Mole again.
“Very well!” said Mr. Mole Cricket. “That’s kind of you, I’m sure. And now, if you want to make me quite happy, there’s one more thing to which you will agree.”
“What’s that?” Chirpy Cricket asked. He felt sorry for Mr. Mole Cricket, who had never known the pleasure of fiddling with a thousand other musicians under the stars on a warm summer night. “If there is anything I can do to make you happy, just tell me!”
“Then call me ‘Cousin’!” Mr. Mole Cricket begged him.
Chirpy Cricket cast one glance at Mr. Mole Cricket’s huge feet. In spite of everything their owner had told him, Chirpy still found it difficult to believethat Mr. Mole Cricket could be even a very distant relation.
“I’ll do it!” he said at last. “If it will make you any happier I’ll call you ‘Cousin’—though you can’t be any nearer than a hundred times removed.”
It was easy to see that Mr. Mole Cricket was delighted.
“Thank you! Thank you!” he exclaimed. “But permit me to correct you. I’m your cousin a good many thousand times removed. But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t be the best of friends. And now,” he added, “won’t you come home with me? I’d like you to meet my wife.”
While thanking him for the invitation, Chirpy Cricket couldn’t help wondering whether Mr. Mole Cricket’s wife had as big feet as her husband.
XIVCHIRPY IS CAREFUL
“Do you live near-by?” Chirpy Cricket inquired of Mr. Mole Cricket, who had just invited him to his home to meet his wife.
“My home is not very far from here,” his new cousin said. “We’ll go back through this tunnel I’ve been making. The other end of it opens into my dwelling, some distance below the surface of the garden. Follow me and you’ll have no trouble finding it.”
But somehow Chirpy Cricket did not quite like the idea of travelling with the stranger, cousin though he might be, underFarmer Green’s garden. “Not to-day!” he said politely. “I haven’t had anything to eat since last night. And I don’t feel like taking a journey.”
“We’ll snatch a bite on the way to my house,” Mr. Mole Cricket suggested cheerfully. “I’ll dig out a few juicy roots for you. Which kind do you like best—beet, turnip or carrot?”
“I don’t like any of them,” Chirpy Cricket confessed.
“You don’t!” his cousin cried, as if he were astonished to hear that. “What do you live on, then?”
“Grass!” Chirpy answered.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Mr. Mole Cricket. “And I must say you have queer tastes—even though you are my own cousin.”
Chirpy Cricket saw that he and Mr. Mole Cricket were bound to have troubleif they saw too much of each other. So he hinted—in a delicate way—that Mr. Mole Cricket’s wife must be wondering where he was.
Thereupon that gentleman started up hurriedly and made for his tunnel.
“I’ll see you again sometime,” he said hastily over his shoulder. And in another instant he was gone.
They never met again. Chirpy Cricket took great pains never to spend another day in hiding in Farmer Green’s garden. He was afraid there might be trouble if he saw more of his cousin. And he couldn’t forget those powerful forelegs and enormous feet of Mr. Mole Cricket! They looked very dangerous.
The longer Chirpy pondered over his brief meeting with Mr. Mole Cricket, the more firmly he made up his mind that he had been in great danger and that he hadbeen lucky to escape alive. Everybody knew that Grandfather Mole was a terrible-tempered person when aroused. He would rush at anybody, big or little. Perhaps that was because he couldn’t see what sized person he was attacking. For Grandfather Mole was blind. But he never stopped to inquire of anybody whether he was tall or short, thick or thin. He just went ahead without asking.
“I’m glad,” thought Chirpy, “that I didn’t go home with Mr. Mole Cricket. If his wife’s feet are anything like his they’d be a fearful pair to quarrel with. And even if they hadn’t quarrelled with me, they might have had trouble between themselves. And if I happened to get in their way it would certainly have gone hard with me.”
Harmless Mr. Mole Cricket never knew what a monster his cousin Chirpy Cricketbelieved him to be. When he reached home he told his wife that he had met a queer little cousin who spent much of his time above ground and lived on grass.
But Mrs. Mole Cricket wouldn’t believe him. She told him not to be silly. She even said that there wasn’t any such thing as grass. And she asked him how anybody could live on it when there wasn’t any anywhere.
Naturally, she wouldn’t have talked like that if she had ever seen much of the world. But she had spent her whole life down in the dirt, beneath Farmer Green’s garden.
XVTOMMY TREE CRICKET
After meeting that odd Mr. Mole Cricket, who claimed to be his cousin, Chirpy Cricket tried to find out more about him from his nearer relations. But there wasn’t one that had ever seen or heard of such a person. One night Chirpy even travelled quite a distance to call on Tommy Tree Cricket, with the hope that perhaps Tommy might be able to tell him something.
Chirpy found Tommy Tree Cricket in the tangle of raspberry bushes beyond the garden. It was not hard to tell where he was, because he was a famous fiddler. Heplayed a tune that was different from Chirpy’scr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!Tommy Tree Cricket fiddledre-teat! re-teat! re-teat!And many considered him a much finer musician than Chirpy himself. He was small and pale. Beside Chirpy Cricket, who was all but black, Tommy Tree Cricket looked decidedly delicate. But he could fiddle all night without getting tired.
“I’ve come all the way from the yard to have a chat with you!” Chirpy called to his cousin Tommy.
“Come up and have a seat!” said Tommy Tree Cricket.
“I can find one here, thank you!” Chirpy answered.
“Oh! Don’t sit on the damp ground!” Tommy cried. “That’s a dangerous thing to do.”
Chirpy Cricket smiled to himself. Ina way Tommy Tree Cricket was queer. He always clung to trees and shrubs, claiming that it was much more healthful to live off the ground. But he was so pale that Chirpy Cricket was sure he was mistaken.
“The ground’s good enough for me,” Chirpy told his cousin.
“Well, we won’t quarrel about that tonight,” said Tommy Tree Cricket. “Sit there, if you will. And when I’ve finished playing this tune we’ll have a talk. I only hope you won’t catch cold while you’re waiting down there.”
“Can’t you stop fiddling long enough to talk with me now?” Chirpy asked him. “I’ve come here to ask you whether you ever saw a cousin of ours called Mr. Mole Cricket.”
“Re-teat! re-teat! re-teat!” Tommy Tree Cricket was already fiddling awayas if it were the last night of the summer. He was making so much shrill music that he couldn’t hear a word Chirpy said. The more Chirpy tried to attract his attention the harder he played, rolling his eyes in every direction—except that of his caller.
Several times Chirpy Cricket leaped into the air, hoping that Tommy Tree Cricket would see that he had something important to say. But Tommy paid not the slightest heed to him.
At last Chirpy decided that he might as well do a little fiddling himself, to pass the time away. So he began hiscr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!And then Tommy noticed him immediately.
“You’re playing the wrong tune!” he cried. “It’sre-teat! re-teat! re-teat!”
Chirpy Cricket thought that his cousin’s face was slightly darker, as if a flush of annoyance had come over it. He certainlydidn’t want to quarrel with Tommy Tree Cricket. So he said to him, very mildly, “I fear you do not like my playing.”
“I can’t say that I do,” said Tommy. “It makes me think of that creaking pump at the farmhouse.”
“And of what”—Chirpy Cricket stammered—“of what, pray, does your own fiddling remind you?”
“Ah!” said Tommy. “My own music is like nothing in the world except the sound of a shimmering moonbeam.”
There is no doubt that Tommy Tree Cricket thought very well of his own fiddling.
XVIA LONG WAIT
Chirpy cricket was so good-natured that he wouldn’t quarrel with his cousin, Tommy Tree Cricket. Although Tommy had said bluntly that Chirpy’s fiddling reminded him of Farmer Green’s creaking pump, Chirpy made no disagreeable answer. He did not want to hurt his pale cousin’s feelings.
After making his rude remark Tommy Tree Cricket began hisre-teat! re-teat! re-teat!once more. He shuffled his wings together at a faster rate than ever, as if he had to furnish all the music for the night. As before, he seemed to have forgottenall about his caller; for Chirpy still waited beneath the raspberry bush where Tommy Tree Cricket was fiddling.
But if Tommy paid no heed to Chirpy, there was a reason why. Near Tommy sat a pale young miss of his own sort, who listened with great enjoyment to his playing. Or at least she acted as if she thought it the most beautiful music in the whole world.
Tommy Tree Cricket was not so intent upon his fiddling that he couldn’t roll his eyes towards his fair listener. And Chirpy was not slow to understand that it was for her that Tommy was playing hisre-teat! re-teat! re-teat!
“I’ll wait here until he rests,” Chirpy said to himself. “Then I’ll ask him again what he knows about Mr. Mole Cricket.”
Well, Chirpy waited and waited. But it seemed to him that as the night lengthenedTommy Tree Cricket fiddled all the faster. And if the weather hadn’t turned colder along toward morning probably he wouldn’t have had a chance to speak to Tommy again.
Anyhow, a cool wind began to whip around the side of Blue Mountain and sweep through Pleasant Valley. And the moment it struck Tommy Tree Cricket he began to play more slowly. Little by little a longer pause crept between hisre-teats. And at last the pale miss beside him cried, “I hope you’re not going to stop your beautiful fiddling!”
“I fear I’ll have to,” Tommy told her with a sigh. “I’m beginning to feel a bit stiff, with this north wind blowing on me.”
This was Chirpy Cricket’s chance.
“Please!” he called. “Will you listen to me a moment?”
“What! Have you come back again?” Tommy Tree Cricket sang out.
“No! I’ve been here all the time,” Chirpy explained. “I’ve been waiting for hours to have a talk with you.”
“Very well!” Tommy answered. “It’s too cold for me to fiddle any more. So talk away! And you’d better be quick about it, for the night’s almost gone.”
But somehow Chirpy Cricket felt that his chat could wait a little longer. If the pale young person clinging to the raspberry bush near Tommy Tree Cricket loved music, he thought it was a pity to disappoint her.
“You may feel too cold to fiddle; but I don’t!” Chirpy said. “I’m quite warm down here on the ground. This little hollow where I’m sitting is sheltered from the wind. So I’ll fiddle for your friend.” As he spoke he began to play.
Looks as of great pain came over the pale faces of his two listeners in the raspberry bush. And they shuddered so violently that they had to cling tightly to their seats to keep from falling.
“My friend thanks you. But she says she doesn’t care for your fiddling,” Tommy Tree Cricket called down to Chirpy. “She says it’s too squeaky.”
Chirpy Cricket was fiddling so hard by that time that he never heard a word. And when he stopped at last, to rest a bit, a voice cried out, “That’s fine! Won’t you play some more?”
Chirpy Cricket was pleased. He thought, of course, that it was Tommy’s friend speaking to him. But when he looked up he couldn’t see her anywhere—nor her companion either.
They had both disappeared. And it was already gray in the east.
XVIISITTING ON A LILY-PAD
Though Chirpy Cricket looked all around with great care, he couldn’t discover who had spoken to him. A voice from somewhere had called out that his music was fine and asked him if he wouldn’t play some more.
Whoever the owner of the voice might be, it was plain that he liked music. So without knowing for whom he was playing, Chirpy began to fiddle again. And when he stopped the same voice cried, “Thank you very much!”
Now, the duck-pond was near-by. And at first Chirpy hadn’t thought of lookingthere for his listener. But the second time he heard the voice he guessed that it came from the pond. So Chirpy leaped to the water’s edge; and there, sitting on a lily-pad, was the tiniest Frog he had ever seen. He seemed no bigger than Chirpy himself.
“How do you do!” Chirpy said to him. “Was it you that spoke to me?”
“Yes!” the stranger said. “I’ve been enjoying your music. And I’m glad to meet you. It’s time we knew each other, living as we do in the same neighborhood. My name is Mr. Cricket Frog. And may I inquire what yours is?”
“I’m called Chirpy Cricket,” said the fiddler on the bank. “Is it possible—do you think—that we are cousins?”
“No!” said Mr. Cricket Frog. “No! I belong to a branch of the well-known Tree Frog family. But somehow I’venever cared to live in trees. Indeed, I’ve never climbed a tree in all my life.”
“You’re a sensible person!” Chirpy Cricket cried. He did not know that the reason why Mr. Cricket Frog stayed on the ground was because his feet were not suited to climbing trees. He couldn’t have got up a tree if he had tried. “Aren’t you afraid of falling off that lily-pad into the water?” Chirpy asked his new friend. “It seems to me you haven’t picked out a safe place at all.”
He had scarcely finished speaking when he had a great fright. For Mr. Cricket Frog did not answer him. Instead he leaped suddenly into the air. And Chirpy Cricket feared that he would fall into the water and be drowned. But when Mr. Cricket Frog came down again he landed squarely upon another lily-pad.
“I caught him,” he said pleasantly.
Chirpy Cricket had no idea what he was talking about.
“Whom did you catch?” he asked.
“The fly!” Mr. Cricket Frog replied.
“Don’t you think you took a great risk, leaping above the water like that?” Chirpy inquired. “Aren’t you worried for fear you’ll fall into the pond some day, if you jump for flies in that careless fashion?”
Mr. Cricket Frog tried not to smile.
“Bless you!” he exclaimed. “I spend half my time in the water. Please don’t think I’m boasting when I say I’m a fine swimmer. You’ll understand why when you look at my feet.” And he held up a foot so that Chirpy Cricket might see it.
Chirpy noticed that there were webs between Mr. Cricket Frog’s toes. And everybody knows that webbed feet are the best for swimming.
Mr. Cricket Frog wanted to be agreeable. “Would you like to see me swim?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you!” Chirpy replied.
So Mr. Cricket Frog leaped nimbly into the water and began to swim among the lily-pads while Chirpy watched him and admired his skill.
All at once Chirpy heard a splash. And he was just about to ask Mr. Cricket Frog what it could be, when he noticed something queer about his new friend. He was no longer swimming. He was floating, motionless, upon the water. Not by a single movement of any kind did he show that he was alive.
XVIIIMR. CRICKET FROG’S TRICK
“What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” Chirpy Cricket called to Mr. Cricket Frog from the bank of the duck-pond. Ever since a splash near-by had interrupted their talk, Mr. Cricket Frog had not swum a single stroke. He was floating, motionless, upon the surface of the water. And he made no reply whatever to Chirpy’s questions. He acted exactly as if he had not heard them. The fitful breeze caught at Mr. Cricket Frog’s limp form and wafted it about.
Chirpy Cricket couldn’t help being alarmed. And yet he almost thought, fora moment, that he saw Mr. Cricket Frog’s eyes rolling in his direction, as he stood on the bank of the pond. If Mr. Cricket Frog was in trouble, Chirpy knew of no way to help him. And after a time he made up his mind that Mr. Cricket Frog was beyond anybody’s help. Chirpy was about to go back to the farmyard when Mr. Cricket Frog came suddenly to life.
“Meet me here to-morrow!” he called. Then he dived to the bottom of the water. And Chirpy Cricket went home, thinking that it was all very queer.
“What happened to you yesterday?” Chirpy asked Mr. Cricket Frog, when he came back to the duck-pond the following day and found that spry little gentleman waiting for him on a lily-pad. “Were you ill?”
“Oh, no!” Mr. Cricket Frog answered. “When I heard a splash behind me Ididn’t know who made it. So I played dead for a while. And after waiting until I felt somewhat safer, I went down to the bottom of the pond and hid in the mud. I’ve found that it’s always wise to attract as little attention as possible when I don’t know who’s lurking about.... I hope you didn’t think I was rude,” he added.
“No!” Chirpy told him. “But I’ve been upset ever since I saw you. I haven’t had the heart to fiddle.”
“Dear me!” Mr. Cricket Frog cried. “I must do something to cheer you up. I’ll sing you a song!” Then Mr. Cricket Frog puffed out his yellow throat and began to sing. And he gave Chirpy Cricket a great surprise. For his singing was so like Chirpy’s fiddling that Chirpy thought for a moment he was making the sound himself.
But there was one marked difference.Mr. Cricket Frog’s time was not like his. It was not regular. Mr. Cricket Frog began to sing somewhat slowly and gradually sang faster and faster. After he had sung about thirty notes he would pause to get his breath. And then he would begin again, exactly as before.
Mr. Cricket Frog hadn’t sung long before Chirpy’s spirits began to rise. Indeed, he soon felt so cheerful that he began to fiddle. And between the two they made such a chirping that an old drake swam across the duck-pond to see what was going on.
Of course, his curiosity put an end to the concert. Mr. Cricket Frog saw him coming. And this time he didn’t stop to play dead. He sank in a great hurry to the bottom of the pond.
Chirpy Cricket wondered why his friend chose to stay in a place where there wereso many interruptions. “I should think,” he said to himself, “Mr. Cricket Frog would rather live in a hole in the ground, as I do.... I must ask him, when I see him again, why he doesn’t move to the farmyard.”
Mr. Cricket Frog was very polite, later, when Chirpy spoke to him about moving. But he explained that he was too fond of swimming to do that. And besides, he thought his voice sounded better on water than it did on land.
XIXIT WASN’T THUNDER
Quite often, during the nightly concerts in which Chirpy Cricket took part, he had noticed an odd cry,Peent! Peent!which seemed to come from the woods. And sometimes there followed from the same direction a hollow, booming sound, as if somebody were amusing himself by blowing across the bung-hole of an empty barrel.
Chirpy Cricket had a great curiosity to know who made those queer noises. He asked everybody he met about them. And at last Kiddie Katydid told him that it was Mr. Nighthawk that he had heard.
“He seems to think he’s a musician,” said Chirpy Cricket. “But I must say I don’t care much for his music. He’s not what you might call a steady player. And his notes are not shrill enough for my liking. Perhaps he lacks training. I’d be glad to take him in hand and see what I could do with him. Tell me! Does he ever visit our neighborhood?”
“Not often!” said Kiddie Katydid. “I met him here once. And that was enough for me. I never felt more uncomfortable in all my life.” He shuddered as he spoke and looked over his shoulder.
Somehow Chirpy Cricket did not share Kiddie Katydid’s uneasiness. The more he thought about Mr. Nighthawk the more he wanted to meet him.
“If you ever see Mr. Nighthawk again I wish you’d tell him I want to talk with him,” Chirpy said.
“I’ll do so,” Kiddie Katydid promised. “And now let me give you a bit of advice. When you meet Mr. Nighthawk, keep perfectly still. He’s a hungry fellow, always on the look-out for somebody to eat. But he has one peculiar habit: he won’t grab you unless you’re moving through the air. He always takes his food on the wing.”
Chirpy thanked his friend Kiddie Katydid for this valuable bit of news. And he said he’d be sure to remember it.
“Well,” Kiddie Katydid observed, “if you forget it when you meet Mr. Nighthawk you’ll forget it only once. For he’ll grab you quick as a flash.”
Chirpy Cricket pondered a good deal over the talk he had with Kiddie Katydid. It was clear that Mr. Nighthawk was a dangerous person. “Perhaps”—Chirpy thought—“perhaps if I could get him totake a greater interest in his music he wouldn’t be so ferocious. Yes! I feel sure that if I could only persuade him to practice that booming sound it would give Mr. Nighthawk something pleasant to think of. Who knows but that he might become as gentle as I am?”
Chirpy Cricket liked that notion so much that he thought of little else. He even began to consider making a journey to the woods where Mr. Nighthawk lived, in order to meet that gentleman and offer to train him to be a better musician. And at last Chirpy had even decided to go—as soon as the moon should be full. He spent much of his time listening for Mr. Nighthawk’sPeent! Peent!which now and then came faintly across the meadow, and the dull, muffledboomthat often followed.
While Chirpy waited for the moon to grow full, one night an odd thing happened.The stars twinkled overhead. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Yet all at once a loudboomstartled Chirpy Cricket and made him leap suddenly towards home.
“Goodness!” he cried to Kiddie Katydid, who happened to be near him. “Did you hear the thunder?”
“That wasn’t thunder,” Kiddie said. “And you’d better not jump like that again. Mr. Nighthawk is here. He made that sound himself.”
XXBOUND TO BE DIFFERENT
Nothing ever surprised Chirpy Cricket more than what Kiddie Katydid told him. He had thought it was thunder that he had just heard. But it was Mr. Nighthawk, making that odd, booming sound of his. It was ever so much louder than Chirpy had supposed it could be. He had never heard it so near before.
For a moment Chirpy thought that perhaps Kiddie Katydid didn’t know what he was talking about. But no! There was Mr. Nighthawk’s well-known call,Peent! Peent!There was no denying that it was his voice. He always talked throughhis nose—or so it sounded. And one couldn’t mistake it.
Chirpy Cricket began to think that after all he would rather not have a talk with Mr. Nighthawk. He certainly sounded terrible!
Meanwhile Mr. Nighthawk alighted in a tree right over Chirpy’s head, and settled himself lengthwise along a limb. He was, indeed, an odd person. He liked to be different from other folk. And just because other birds sat crosswise on a perch, Mr. Nighthawk had to sit in exactly the opposite fashion. No doubt if he could have, he would have hung underneath the limb by his heels, like Benjamin Bat. Only he would have wanted to hang by his nose instead of his heels, in order to be different.
“Has anybody seen Chirpy Cricket?” Mr. Nighthawk sang out.
“He’s on the ground, under that tree you’re in,” Kiddie Katydid informed him. Kiddie never moved as he spoke, but clung closely to a twig in the bush where he was hiding. Being green himself, he hardly thought that Mr. Nighthawk would be able to discover him amongst shrubbery of the same color.
Chirpy Cricket wished that Kiddie Katydid hadn’t replied to Mr. Nighthawk at all. But how could Kiddie know that Chirpy had changed his mind? And now Mr. Nighthawk spoke to Chirpy.
“I can’t see you very well, Mr. Cricket,” he said. “Won’t you leap into the air a few times, so I can get a good look at you? I’ve heard that you’ve been wanting to meet me. And I’ve come all the way from the woods just to please you.”
Luckily Chirpy Cricket did not forget Kiddie Katydid’s advice. Kiddie had explainedto him how Mr. Nighthawk caught his meals on the wing.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Chirpy told Mr. Nighthawk. “I’d rather not do any jumping for you. That wasn’t why I wanted to meet you.”
“Ha!” said Mr. Nighthawk. “Then why—pray—did you wish to see me?”
“I thought”—Chirpy Cricket replied—“I thought that perhaps you’d like me to help you with your music. I’ve often heard your booming at a distance. And it has seemed to me that you have the making of a good musician, if you have a good teacher.”
Mr. Nighthawk sniffed. It must be remembered that he was not very gentlemanly.
“I’ve had plenty of training,” he said. “I didn’t come all the way from the woods to be told that I don’t know my own business.I practice every night. And I flatter myself that I’m a perfect performer.”
“Then,” said Chirpy Cricket, “perhaps you need a new fiddle. For there’s no doubt that your booming would sound much better if it were shriller.”
Mr. Nighthawk gave a rude laugh.
“I don’t make that sound with a fiddle,” he sneered. “Don’t you know a wind instrument when you hear it?”