The Tale of Chirpy Cricket Part 1

The Tale of Chirpy Cricket.

by Arthur Scott Bailey.

I

THE FIDDLER

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. And it seemed as if he tried his hardest to crowd as much music as possible into a few weeks, though he had been silent enough during all the spring.

He had dug himself a hole in the ground, under some straw that was scattered near the barn; and every night, from midsummer on, he came out and made merry.

But in the daytime he was usually quiet as a mouse, sitting inside his hole and doing nothing at all except to wait patiently until it should be dark again, so that he might crawl forth from his hiding place and take up his music where he had left it unfinished the night before.

Somehow he always knew exactly where to begin. Although he carried no sheets of music with him, he never had to stop and wonder what note to begin on, for the reason that he always fiddled on the same one.

When rude people asked Chirpy Cricket--as they did now and then--why he didn't change his tune, he always replied that a person couldn't change anything without taking time. And since he expected to make only a short stay in Pleasant Valley he didn't want to fritter away any precious moments.

Chirpy Cricket's neighbors soon noticed that he carried his fiddle with him everywhere he went. And the curious ones asked him a question.

"Why"--they inquired--"why are you forever taking your fiddle with you?"

And Chirpy Cricket reminded them that the summer would be gone almost before anybody knew it. He said that when he wanted to play a tune he didn't intend to waste any valuable time hunting for his fiddle.

Now, all that was true enough. But it was just as true that he couldn't have left his fiddle at home anyhow. Chirpy made his music with his two wings. He rubbed a file-like ridge of one on a rough part of the other.

So his fiddle--if you could call it by that name--just naturally had to go wherever he did.

_Cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!_ When that shrill sound, all on one note, rang out in the night everybody that heard it knew that Chirpy Cricket was sawing out his odd music. And the warmer the night the faster he played. He liked warm weather. Somehow it seemed to make him feel especially lively.

People who wanted to be disagreeable were always remarking in Chirpy Cricket's hearing that they hoped there would be an early frost. They thought of course he would know they were tired of his music and wished he would keep still.

But such speeches only made him fiddle the faster. "An early frost!" he would exclaim. "I must hurry if I'm to finish my summer's fiddling."

Now, Chirpy had dozens and dozens of relations living in holes of their own, in the farmyard or the fields. And the gentlemen were all musical.

Like him, they were fiddlers. Somehow fiddling ran in their family. 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.

II

QUICK AND EASY

Of course Chirpy Cricket didn't spend all his time merely sitting quietly in his hole, in the daytime--and fiddling every night. Of course he had to eat. And each night he was in the habit of creeping out of his hole and gathering spears of gra.s.s in Farmer Green's yard, which he carried home with him.

He called that "doing his marketing." And it was lucky for him that he liked gra.s.s, there was so much of it to be had. All he had to do was to step outside his door; and there it was, all around him! It made housekeeping an easy matter and left him plenty of time, every night, to fiddle and frolic.

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.