Chirpy Cricket

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chirpy Cricket smiled to himself. In 68 a 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sound of fiddling, coming from beneath their feet, always puzzled the hens. They would stop scratching and cock their heads on one side, to listen. And they tried to look very knowing. But they were really the most stupid of all the creatures in the farmyard. If they had only been as wise as Farmer Green’s cat they would have kept still and waited and watched. And sooner or later they would have given Chirpy Cricket the surprise of his life, when he came crawling out of his hole to get a few blades of grass for his supper. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 to 89 take a greater interest in his music he wouldn’t be so ferocious. Yes! ”

“ 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. ”

“ He knew that after sunset almost all the birds were asleep—except for Solomon Owl and Willie Whip-poor-will and a few other feathered folk who preferred the dark to the daylight. They were not so numerous that they worried Chirpy very much. But between dawn and sunset there were altogether too many birds awake to please him. Then Chirpy Cricket kept quite silent. He didn't wish to draw attention to himself by singing, because he didn't care to be gobbled up by any bird, no matter how handsome or hungry the bird might be. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By the end of these twenty years, all these distinguished players had taught a game in which the batting beat the bowling. "Cricket," said Mr. Ward, "unlike hunting, shooting, fishing, or even yachting, was a sport that lasted three days;" the wicket had been twice enlarged, once about 1814, and again in 1817; old Lord had tried his third, the present, ground; the Legs had taught the wisdom of playing rather for love than money; slow coaches had given way to fast, long whist to short; and ultimately Lambert, John Wells, Howard, and Powell, handed over the ball to Broadbridge and Lillywhite. ”

“ Bowling, fielding, wicket-keeping, free hitting, safe and judicious play, and good generalship—in one of these points many a man has earned a name, though inferior in the rest. There are good batsmen and the best of fields among near-sighted men, and hard hitters among weak and crippled men; in weight, nine stone has proved not too little for a first-rate, nor eighteen stone too much; and, as to age, Mr. Ward at sixty, Mr. E. H. Budd at sixty-five, and old John Small at seventy years of age, were useful men in good elevens.
Cricket is a game available to poor as well as rich ”

“ Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it. ”

“ Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of footing it.
Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums!
———————
But what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a broken child’s–toy lies upon the ground; and nothing else remains. ”

“ Cricky taught was Cheerfulness, much the same as you are taught reading and writing. She said that the whole duty of a cricket was to be cheerful. After this she gave them some lessons in Fear. These lessons were something like the things your mother tells you, such as, "Don't go near the water," "Fire burns," "Don't put beans in your ears," "Look before you leap;" only Mrs. Cricky told Chirp and Chee and Chirk never to go near one of old Stingy's spider-webs, and when they saw a giant coming with a fish pole in his hand, to hop away as fast as they could. ”

“ If Pilch, and Clarke, and Lillywhite, averaging fifty years each, are still indifferent to pace in bowling,—and if Mr. Ward, as late as 1844, scored forty against Mr. Kirwan's swiftest bowling, while some of the most active young men, of long experience in cricket, are wholly unequal to the task; then, it is undeniable that a batsman may form a certain invaluable habit, which youth and strength cannot always give, nor age and inactivity entirely take away. ”

“ April comes to an end, and the song of the Cricket commences. At first we hear only timid and occasional solos; but very soon there is a general symphony, when every scrap of turf has its performer. I am inclined to place the Cricket at the head of the choristers of spring. In the waste lands of Provence, when the thyme and the lavender are in flower, the Cricket mingles his note with that of the crested lark, which ascends like a lyrical firework, its throat swelling with music, to its invisible station in the clouds, whence it pours its liquid arias upon the plain below. ”