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 grass
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 Bumblebees; 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 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.
"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 Bumblebee 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
Bumblebees' 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 Bumblebees 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
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 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.