Arthur Scott Bailey

“ So on warm nights, during the last half of the summer, there was sure to be a Crickets’ concert.
Sometimes it seemed to Johnnie Green, who lived in the farmhouse, as if Chirpy Cricket and his relations were trying to drown the songs of the musical Frog family, over in the swamp. ”

“ There were enough night noises before Chirpy Cricket came to live in the farmyard. What with Solomon Owl’s hooting, his cousin Simon Screecher’s quavering call, and the musical Frog’s family’s concerts in Cedar Swamp, it was a wonder that Johnnie Green ever managed to fall asleep. The Katydids alone were almost enough to drive anybody frantic—if he let himself listen to them—with their everlasting cry of Katy did, Katy did ”

“ He was proud of his booming. And he was only too glad of a chance to show Chirpy Cricket how loud he could make it sound.
“Stay right there in that tree, if you will!” Chirpy said. “I won’t move. I’ll sit here and listen.”
“Ha, ha!” Mr. Nighthawk laughed. “I knew you didn’t know anything about wind instruments. When I make that booming sound I’m always on the wing. I’m going to take a flight now. And when I come back you’ll hear a noise that is a noise—and not a squeaky chirp.” ”

“ Chirpy Cricket was glad of one thing. Mr. Mole Cricket talked quite 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ And every time he heard Simon Screecher’s unearthly wail he shivered so hard that his fiddling actually seemed to shiver too.
Mr. Meadow Mouse inquired regularly whether Chirpy had hit upon any plan. 113 And at last Mr. Meadow Mouse announced that he would have to think of one himself. So he sat down and looked very wise, while Chirpy Cricket fiddled for him, because Mr. Meadow Mouse explained that his wits always worked better when somebody made music for him. ”

“ There was only one light that Chirpy Cricket was always glad to see. He thought Freddie Firefly’s flashes looked very cheerful as they twinkled about the farmyard. And he often told Freddie that he would be willing to linger above ground in the daytime now and then, if only Freddie would stay with him and make merry with his light. 21
But Freddie Firefly knew enough to decline the invitation. He was well aware that nobody could see his light when the sun was shining. And he was afraid that other merrymakers in the farmyard might make matters far from merry for him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. 88
“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 had been living in the pasture some time before he discovered that a very musical family had come to live next door to him. They were known as the Bumblebees; and there were dozens of them huddled 11 into a hole long since deserted by some Woodchucks that had moved to other quarters.
Although they were said to be great workers—most of them!—the Bumblebee family found plenty of time to make music. They were very fond of humming. And in the beginning Chirpy Cricket thought their humming a pleasant sound to hear, as he sat in his dark hole during the daytime. ”

“ Chirpy Cricket told him that he was glad to know it. 104
“I’m a vegetarian myself,” he added proudly, “for I eat blades of grass. And you see I’m harmless too.”
Mr. Meadow Mouse bestowed another fat smile on him.
“Then,” he said, “it must be quite safe for me to stay here and talk with you.”
Chirpy Cricket didn’t know why the plump gentleman was smiling, unless it was because he felt easy in his mind. Chirpy couldn’t help liking him, he was so friendly.
“I’ll play my favorite tune for you, if you wish,” Chirpy offered, being eager to do something pleasant for his new acquaintance. ”

“ Chirpy Cricket lost no time in getting his own fiddle to working. And each of them really believed he was himself making most of the music that was heard in the pasture.
Once in a while Chirpy Cricket and his cousin stopped to eat a little grass, or paused to carry a few spears into their holes, because they liked to have something to nibble on in the daytime. But they always returned to their fiddling again; and they never stopped for good until almost morning. ”

“ 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. 87
“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. ”

“ Johnnie Green cried. “Come up and help me find him!”
So Farmer Green climbed the stairs and looked into Johnnie’s room and laughed.
“Maybe I ought to have brought the old shotgun,” he said. “I’d hate to have a Cricket jump at me.”
Johnnie managed to grin at that. He was so wide awake that he no longer felt like grumbling.
“The trouble with this Cricket is that he 37 won’t jump,” he told his father. “I can’t tell where he is, because he keeps still whenever I move. But when the light’s out and everything’s quiet he makes a terrible noise.”
“That’s a trick Crickets have,” Farmer Green observed. ”

“ They acted as if they would rather make the nights ring with their music than do anything else. And Johnnie Green said one evening, when he heard Solomon Owl hooting over in the hemlock woods, that it was lucky there weren’t as many Owls as there were Crickets in the valley.
If there were hundreds—or maybe thousands—of Owls, and they all hooted at the same time, there’d be no sleeping for anybody. At least that was Johnnie 9 Green’s opinion. And it does seem a reasonable one.
Chirpy Cricket’s nearest relations all looked exactly like him. ”

“ If Chirpy Cricket had begun to make music earlier in the summer perhaps he wouldn’t have given so much time to fiddling in Farmer Green’s farmyard. Everybody admitted that Chirpy was the most musical insect in the whole neighborhood. ”

“ 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 Cricket 65 believed 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. ”

“ Then, no doubt, you’ll be all ready to play a tune for me.”
Chirpy Cricket had to explain that he had been playing a tune all the time—that he always played on one note.
So Mr. Meadow Mouse stayed and heard more of the fiddling. He begged Chirpy’s pardon for his mistake. And he said that if he only had a fiddle he should like to 106 learn the same tune himself. “Although,” he added, “it must be very difficult to play always on the same note. It must take a great deal of practice.” ”

“ But somehow I’ve 78 never 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ At last Chirpy decided that he might as well do a little fiddling himself, to pass the time away. So he began his cr-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’s re-teat! re-teat! re-teat!” ”