The Tale of Chirpy Cricket Part 4

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 pa.s.sing 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