Mr. and Mrs. Mole Cricket had folded their hands for the winter. The
busy season was over, for the ground was all hard with the foot tread
of Jack Frost and the snow lay all over the lodge--a solid, warm cover
that squeaked and crunched quite musically when little Boy Will rode
back and forth on it with his sled Dasher.
Shadows lay rather heavily in the lodge. The caverns and galleries
which had been built in warmer times were hung with darkness and all
was still in slumber.
Side by side in the chamber, just under the long, dead grass and the
white snow, with a roof formed of tiny roots and loose earth, lay Mr.
and Mrs. Mole Cricket.
It was the same chamber in which had lain the little white eggs that
the warm sun had hatched, and from it the young crickets had gone out,
already valiant, to burrow their own galleries, and seek their own food.
Slumber had gone on in the chamber for many weeks when, at a sudden
sound, Mr. Cricket moved. We fancy he was cross at being disturbed.
"What's that?" he said.
"Boy Will," answered his wife. "He's digging up the snow to make a snow
man, and shouting."
"He'll make us cold," grumbled Mr. Cricket.
"Then we must go to the cavern."
"But we can't--I'm as stiff as a stick."
"I believe I am, too."
The earth that covered their roof was very sandy and loose, when not
frozen, and as it was, it yielded readily to persistent thumps such
as now fell about it. The snow was soggy--just right for building
purposes--and Boy Will, in his enthusiasm, scraped up a shovelful of
dirt with the last bit of snow that covered the lodge. His sharp eyes
saw something black lying beneath the little dead roots that had in the
summer belonged to his forget-me-nots. He took the shovel--it was his
mother's stove shovel--and carefully pried the dark bundle up, and with
his little red fingers separated it from its wrappings.
"Aha!" he said, and ran into the house. "Look a-here!" he cried as he
ran up to his father's desk. "Well, well!" said his father, looking at
the objects through gold-bowed spectacles, "that's the same sort of
fellow that we teased last summer with a grass blade."
"Tell me," said Boy Will, in wonder, "don't you remember the little
hole in the garden, and when I put in a spear of grass how the fellow
grabbed it with his jaws? I drew him out and there was Sir Mole Cricket
that does so much mischief in the garden."
"Oh yes; and now here are two; but they are dead."
"No, only asleep for the winter. The warm room will revive them but
they may die after all. They will have awakened out of season."
"I wish I could put them back," said Boy Will.
"We will study them a little and then we will see," returned his father
as he took up his penknife and pointed to the folded legs.
"Those big flat fore-legs are what do all the mischief. They are like
strong little hands and have claws on them and they are used for
digging. The main business of Sir Cricket is to burrow and he works
away with these hands of his until he will have made a number of
underground passages. And in his work he will cut off hundreds of new,
tender roots that belong to plants and shrubs. And that's the mischief
of him."
"What do they eat?"
"Why, little bugs; but they are fierce, hungry creatures, and when they
meet a mole cricket that is weak and defenseless they pounce on him and
eat him. They are no respecter of relatives."
"They don't deserve to live!" cried Boy Will, with a stamp.
"But we can give them their chances," returned Mr. Rey. "Now look at
this one. There are two sets of wings. One outside and one inside
like grasshoppers, but much shorter. Here are two delicate feelers,
or antennæ, bent backward, and two at the end of the body. I suppose
those are for the purpose of discovering any danger that might approach
them from behind while they are busy at digging. The jaws are toothed
and horny, and so, all in all, we may put Sir Cricket down in the same
order in which are the katydid, grasshopper, field and house cricket,
cockroach, earwig and so on, which is the order _Orthoptera_. Now come
and show me where you found them."
Boy Will led the way where stood his half-built snow-man, and Mr. Rey
with a stick felt about in the chamber for the opening to another
cavity to the lodge.
"Ah, here it is--a warmer and a better one than the other because it is
deeper," and he slipped the two objects in and stopped the doorway with
earth and snow.
"Well, I declare!" said Mr. Mole Cricket from under his horny skin,
"What do you think of that?"
"Why," said his wife, "they've put us in the cavern where we should
have been in the first place. What a mistake it was to go to sleep in
the nursery! Now we shall be quite safe until spring."
"Well, well, true enough!" returned Sir Mole Cricket. And they both
fell asleep again.