There was the greatest scurrying around in the fields on the edge of the
woods about Ben Gile's cabin. Little girls and boys were flitting hither
and thither with pretty nets and small boxes strapped over their
shoulders. Inside the boxes there seemed to be just as much hopping
about as there was outside.
By-and-by the guide put his head out of his cabin door and called, "How
many have you?"
"Oh, lots and lots!" the children answered.
"Bring them in." And the children trooped into the cabin, which they
thought quite the most wonderful place in the world. Its walls were
lined with books and cases. The books were not only in English, but also
in French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, and other languages, and the
cases were filled with scores of specimens, the most beautiful
butterflies, moths, beetles, birds, flowers, and rare stones. The floor
of the cabin was covered by different kinds of skins. Besides, there
were telescopes, field-glasses, magnifying-glasses, specimen cases, old
weapons, and a flute. And by the great wide fireplace, in front of which
the guide was cooking biscuits and cookies in a reflector oven, lay
several kittens, the old black dog, Thor, and a dappled fawn which Thor
was licking.
"Those crickets sound like pop-guns," said the old man, slipping more
cookies into the oven and setting a pan of biscuits on a shelf by the
hearth.
"Oh, please," said little Hope, "we've got bushels of them!"
"Now we'll let those cookies bake while we 'tend to the fiddlers. Are
four pans of cookies enough for five children?"
"Yes, yes."
"Now, Hope, let me have your bushel box. H'm," he murmured, peeping in,
"all dressed for the party. What color?"
"Brown, sir."
"Black, too," said Betty; "and on a few," she added, "there's a stripe
or a weeny spot of color."
"Oho!" exclaimed the old man, "what have we here?" He took a pale little
creature from Hope's basket.
"Why, it's white and green tinted," called Jimmie. "That isn't a
cricket."
"Isn't it? Well, it's a first cousin which lives in the trees and loves
its tree home so much, like the sensible little fellow it is, that it
sings 'Tr-e-e-e, tr-e-e-e,' as fast as it can trill all summer long. But
it is very harmful to the tree, because when egg-laying time comes it
cuts a long slit in the trees in which to lay its eggs. Just a minute!"
The old man shifted the position of the baker, and out came such a good
odor of cookies that all the children sniffed with delight. "Here,
Jack," he said, to a brown little fellow in ragged clothes and bare
feet, "you have a singer in your box."
"I didn't catch but one," said the lad.
"Briers aren't good for bare legs, are they? Never mind, your crickets
won't eat one another."
"Eat one another?" cried the children.
"Yes, crickets are cannibals, like some other insects, and they
frequently eat a near relation or a friend, as the people in the Fiji
Islands used to do. This is a nice brown little chap, Jack. Do you know
how he makes his music?"
[Illustration:
_A._ File on wing of cricket.
_B._ Scraper on wing of cricket.
_C._ Mrs. Cricket.]
"Why, I suppose," said the boy, "he opens his mouth the way Mr. Tucker
does in the church choir, and--"
There was a shout of laughter from Jimmie, who was sure he knew a great
deal.
"Well," said the guide to Jim, "then how does it make its music, since
you know?"
"Not with its mouth."
"Then how?"
"I don't know, sir," stammered Jimmie, who found he didn't know as much
as he thought he did.
"When Mr. Cricket sings," went on the hermit, "it lifts its two wing
covers so that the edges meet like the pointed roof of a house. Then
your little fiddler, Jack, rubs one edge against the other."
All this time Peter Beech had been waving his hand about, the way
children do in school, and giving big sniffs.
"Please, sir, the cookies are burning."
"Bless my soul!" The guide whisked the cookies away.
"Please, sir," said Jack, "are we going to have something soon?" Jack
did not look as if he had his share of food to eat, for he was as thin
as the fawn which had curled up near him. Jack had twelve brothers and
sisters, and a father who wasn't what he ought to be, so there were
times when there was no food for Jack.
"Yes, my son," said the guide, kindly, for the old man could guess how
hungry the lad was. "But, first, where do you suppose the crickets and
katydids have their ears?"
"Near those big eyes," called Peter.
"No, no, on the joint of the fore leg is a little membrane, which is
just a thinner, tighter place in the skin of the leg. There!" Ben Gile
had the fore leg of Jack's cricket stretched under the magnifying-glass.
The children could see plainly the film of tight skin. "Underneath the
thin, tight skin is a fine nerve which, when the air makes the skin
shake, changes the motion into sound. Mrs. Cricket listens with her fore
leg while Mr. Cricket sings his love-song to her."
At this the children laughed and laughed, and comical little Peter put
up his leg as if listening.
"Here, Pete, give me your box. Do you remember what I told you about
Mrs. Locust, Betty, and the way she lays her eggs?"
"Yes, sir. She has four straight spines at the end of her body, and
after she has bored a hole with her body she guides the eggs in with the
four spines."
"Good! Well, Mrs. Cricket wears at the end of her body a long spear. See
this cricket of Peter's. Now she bores her hole with this spear and
then guides her eggs carefully into the hole. Why, see here, Pete, what
have you got here?"
The children gazed eagerly over the old man's shoulder.
"My, isn't it like velvet!" exclaimed Peter.
"And isn't it brown!" added Hope.
"But look at its stumpy front legs!" called Jack, who had forgotten his
empty stomach in the excitement about this little creature, which looked
like a cricket and yet was so different.
"And its little beads of eyes!" said Betty.
"Do you know what it is?" No one knew. "Well, it's a mole cricket. You
rarely ever see one because they live underground and bore their way
along just like moles, leaving tiny tracks and nibbling the roots of
tender plants. You see, it doesn't need eyes any more than the mole
does. But it does need those thickened fore legs to do its underground
digging. Now, children, run out into the fields and let your crickets
go. Be careful not to hurt them. We'll have supper, and after supper
we'll catch a katydid."
Out ran the children. Soon they were setting the long wooden tables
under the trees with delicious trout the boys had caught, with hot
biscuits and jugs of maple syrup, with berries and cookies, with milk
from the old cow, who, contentedly chewing her cud, was looking at them
through the low crotch of a tree, and with little cakes of maple sugar
which the guide had moulded into the shape of hearts.
V