Chapter 2

From his hiding place in the crack of the baseboard, in a corner of Johnnie Green's chamber, Chirpy Cricket saw the gleam of the candle. And he wondered whether it might be a relation of Freddie Firefly. It seemed to have a trick of moving about in a jerky fashion, as if it didn't know where it was going and didn't greatly care, so long as it was on the move.

Chirpy Cricket kept still as a mouse then. He soon saw that the bearer of the bright light was quite unlike Freddie Firefly, in one way. He made a tremendous racket, knocking over almost everything in the room.

In a few minutes a voice called up the stairway again. "Is the Cricket chasing you?" it asked. It was Farmer Green, speaking to Johnnie.

"Don't tease me!" 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 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. "And I must say that if I were a Cricket I'd act the same way."

Of course Chirpy Cricket heard everything that was said. And he couldn't help thinking that Farmer Green was a very sensible person. "I dare say he'd be a famous fiddler if he belonged to our family," Chirpy told himself. And for a moment or two he was tempted to play a tune for Farmer Green. But he thought better of the notion at once. He remembered that Farmer Green had climbed the stairs to hunt for him. And Chirpy squeezed himself further into the crack where he was hiding until he was so huddled up that he couldn't have fiddled if he had wanted to.

Though they looked carefully, neither Johnnie nor his father could find him. And at last they had to admit that it was useless to search any longer.

"What shall I do?" Johnnie wailed. "As soon as I put out the light and get into bed he'll begin chirping again."

"In such cases," Farmer Green answered wisely, "there's only one thing to do."

"What's that?" Johnnie inquired hopefully.

"All you can do," said Farmer Green, "is to come downstairs and have something to eat."

Now, that may seem a strange remedy. But somehow it just suited Johnnie Green. He pattered barefooted down the stairs. And later, when he went to bed again, and Chirpy Cricket began to chirp once more, all Johnnie Green said was this:

"Sing away--little Tommy Tucker! You may not know it, but you sang for my supper!"

And the next moment, Johnnie Green was sound asleep.

IX

AN INTERRUPTED NAP

Chirpy Cricket liked his home in Farmer Green's yard. During the long summer days he thought it very cheerful to rest in his dark hole in the ground. He liked the darkness of his home; he liked its warmth, too. For in pleasant weather the sun beat down upon the straw-littered ground above him and gave him plenty of heat, while on gray days the straw blanket kept his house cosy. And it never occurred to Chirpy Cricket that there was anything odd in having a blanket over his house instead of over himself.

Nothing ever really disturbed Chirpy Cricket after he settled in the farmyard. To be sure, he had a few frights at first. Now and then the earth trembled in a terrible fashion. But that happened only when Johnnie Green led old Ebenezer, or some other horse, to the watering-trough, passing right over Chirpy's home. And Chirpy had soon learned that he was in no danger.

Then at other times he heard an odd tearing and scratching, as if some giant had discovered Chirpy's doorway and meant to dig him out of his hiding place. By peeping slyly out he discovered at last the cause of those fearful sounds. It was only the hens looking for something to eat--a bit of grain amid the straw, or perhaps an angleworm. Chirpy never left his house when he heard the hens at work. He had no wish to offer himself as a tidbit. And he felt quite safe down in his home, for he was quick to learn that the hens were no diggers. They could only scratch the surface of the ground. So, in time, he used to laugh when he heard them. And now and then he would even fiddle a bit, as if to say to them, "Here I am! Come and get me if you can!"

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.

But even if the hens had thought of such a plan they never could have kept their minds upon it long enough to carry it out. So perhaps it was no wonder that Chirpy Cricket got the idea into his head that he was safe from everybody. Sometimes, when he was dozing, even the footsteps of old Ebenezer failed to rouse him.

But there came a day when Chirpy Cricket awoke with a great start. Something had touched his long feelers. Something had come right down into his hole and was prodding him.

He thought it must be a hen. And he did not laugh. No! Nor did he fiddle!

X

CAUGHT!

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. So he 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. He waved 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.

XI

A 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 there was 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't dare 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 answered in 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."

XII

AN UNDERGROUND CHAT

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."

"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-found cousin 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 Cricket were 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.

XIII

A 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 trouble you!" 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 that Chirpy 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 believe that 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.

XIV

CHIRPY 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, under Farmer 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 trouble if 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 had been 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 Cricket 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.

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.

XV

TOMMY 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. He played a tune that was different from Chirpy's _cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!_ Tommy Tree Cricket fiddled _re-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. In 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?" 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 away as 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 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!_"

Chirpy Cricket thought that his cousin's face was slightly darker, as if a flush of annoyance had come over it. He certainly didn'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.

XVI

A 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.