Part 1 (2/2)

Somehow Chirpy could never go from one place to another in a slow, sober walk. He always moved by leaps, as if he felt too gay to plod along like Daddy Longlegs, for instance. Chirpy himself often remarked that he hadn't time to move slowly. And almost before he had finished speaking, as likely as not he would jump into the air and alight some distance away. It was all done so quickly that a person could scarcely see how it happened. But Chirpy Cricket said it was as easy as anything. And having leaped like that, often he would begin to shuffle his wings together the moment he landed on the ground, thereby making his shrill music.

Many of his neighbors declared that he believed a short life and a merry one was the best kind. And when they thought of Timothy Turtle, who was so old that n.o.body could even guess his age, and was so disagreeable and snappish that every one kept out of his way, the neighbors decided that possibly Chirpy Cricket's way was the better of the two. Anyhow, there was no doubt that Timothy Turtle believed in a long life and a grumpy one.

All Chirpy's relations were of the same mind as he. 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 Green's opinion. And it does seem a reasonable one.

Chirpy Cricket's nearest relations all looked exactly like him. Everybody said that the Crickets bore a strong family resemblance to one another.

But there were others--more distant cousins--that were quite unlike Chirpy. There were the Mole Crickets, who stayed in the ground and never, never came to the surface; and there were the Tree Crickets, who lived in the trees and fiddled _re-teat! re-teat re-teat!_ until you might have thought they would get tired of their ditty.

But they never did. They seemed to like their music as much as Chirpy Cricket liked his _cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!_

III

THE b.u.mBLEBEE FAMILY

The farmyard was not the first place that Chirpy Cricket chose for his home. Before he dug himself a hole under the straw near the barn he had settled in the pasture. Although the cows seemed to think that the gra.s.s in the pasture belonged to them alone, Chirpy decided that there ought to be enough for him too, if he didn't eat too much.

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 b.u.mblebees; and there were dozens of them huddled 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 b.u.mblebee 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.

”They're having a party in there!” he said, the first time he noticed the droning music. ”No doubt”--he added--”no doubt they're enjoying a dance!”

The thought made him feel so jolly that if it had only been dark out of doors he would have left his home and leaped about in the pasture.

All that day, between naps, Chirpy could hear the humming. ”It's certainly a long party!” he exclaimed, when he awoke late in the afternoon and heard the b.u.mblebee family still making music. But about sunset their humming stopped. And Chirpy Cricket couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed, because he had hoped to enjoy a dance himself, to the b.u.mblebees' music when he left his home that evening.

A little later he told his favorite cousin about the party that had lasted all day. And Chirpy said that he supposed the b.u.mblebees had only one party a year, because he understood that most of them were great workers, and he didn't believe they would care to spend a whole day humming, very often.

The favorite cousin gave Chirpy a strange look in the moonlight. And then he began to fiddle, making no remark whatsoever. He thought there was no use wasting words on a fine, warm night--just the sort of night for a lively _cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!_

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 gra.s.s, 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 at last Chirpy Cricket announced that he would make no more music that night.

”I'll go home now,” he said. ”I expect to have a good day's rest. And I'll meet you at this same spot to-morrow night for a little fiddling.”

”I'll be here,” his favorite cousin promised.

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