XVIII
MR. CRICKET FROG"S TRICK
"What"s the matter? Are you hurt?" Chirpy Cricket called to Mr. Cricket Frog from the bank of the duck-pond. Ever since a splash near-by had interrupted their talk, Mr. Cricket Frog had not swum a single stroke. He was floating, motionless, upon the surface of the water. And he made no reply whatever to Chirpy"s questions. He acted exactly as if he had not heard them. The fitful breeze caught at Mr. Cricket Frog"s limp form and wafted it about.
Chirpy Cricket couldn"t help being alarmed. And yet he almost thought, for a moment, that he saw Mr. Cricket Frog"s eyes rolling in his direction, as he stood on the bank of the pond. If Mr. Cricket Frog was in trouble, Chirpy knew of no way to help him. And after a time he made up his mind that Mr. Cricket Frog was beyond anybody"s help. Chirpy was about to go back to the farmyard when Mr. Cricket Frog came suddenly to life.
"Meet me here to-morrow!" he called. Then he dived to the bottom of the water. And Chirpy Cricket went home, thinking that it was all very queer.
"What happened to you yesterday?" Chirpy asked Mr. Cricket Frog, when he came back to the duck-pond the following day and found that spry little gentleman waiting for him on a lily-pad. "Were you ill?"
"Oh, no!" Mr. Cricket Frog answered. "When I heard a splash behind me I didn"t know who made it. So I played dead for a while. And after waiting until I felt somewhat safer, I went down to the bottom of the pond and hid in the mud. I"ve found that it"s always wise to attract as little attention as possible when I don"t know who"s lurking about.... I hope you didn"t think I was rude," he added.
"No!" Chirpy told him. "But I"ve been upset ever since I saw you. I haven"t had the heart to fiddle."
"Dear me!" Mr. Cricket Frog cried. "I must do something to cheer you up.
I"ll sing you a song!" Then Mr. Cricket Frog puffed out his yellow throat and began to sing. And he gave Chirpy Cricket a great surprise. For his singing was so like Chirpy"s fiddling that Chirpy thought for a moment he was making the sound himself.
But there was one marked difference. Mr. Cricket Frog"s time was not like his. It was not regular. Mr. Cricket Frog began to sing somewhat slowly and gradually sang faster and faster. After he had sung about thirty notes he would pause to get his breath. And then he would begin again, exactly as before.
Mr. Cricket Frog hadn"t sung long before Chirpy"s spirits began to rise.
Indeed, he soon felt so cheerful that he began to fiddle. And between the two they made such a chirping that an old drake swam across the duck-pond to see what was going on.
Of course, his curiosity put an end to the concert. Mr. Cricket Frog saw him coming. And this time he didn"t stop to play dead. He sank in a great hurry to the bottom of the pond.
Chirpy Cricket wondered why his friend chose to stay in a place where there were so many interruptions. "I should think," he said to himself, "Mr. Cricket Frog would rather live in a hole in the ground, as I do....
I must ask him, when I see him again, why he doesn"t move to the farmyard."
Mr. Cricket Frog was very polite, later, when Chirpy spoke to him about moving. But he explained that he was too fond of swimming to do that. And besides, he thought his voice sounded better on water than it did on land.
XIX
IT WASN"T THUNDER
Quite often, during the nightly concerts in which Chirpy Cricket took part, he had noticed an odd cry, _Peent! Peent!_ which seemed to come from the woods. And sometimes there followed from the same direction a hollow, booming sound, as if somebody were amusing himself by blowing across the bung-hole of an empty barrel.
Chirpy Cricket had a great curiosity to know who made those queer noises.
He asked everybody he met about them. And at last Kiddie Katydid told him that it was Mr. Nighthawk that he had heard.
"He seems to think he"s a musician," said Chirpy Cricket. "But I must say I don"t care much for his music. He"s not what you might call a steady player. And his notes are not shrill enough for my liking. Perhaps he lacks training. I"d be glad to take him in hand and see what I could do with him. Tell me! Does he ever visit our neighborhood?"
"Not often!" said Kiddie Katydid. "I met him here once. And that was enough for me. I never felt more uncomfortable in all my life." He shuddered as he spoke and looked over his shoulder.
Somehow Chirpy Cricket did not share Kiddie Katydid"s uneasiness. The more he thought about Mr. Nighthawk the more he wanted to meet him.
"If you ever see Mr. Nighthawk again I wish you"d tell him I want to talk with him," Chirpy said.
"I"ll do so," Kiddie Katydid promised. "And now let me give you a bit of advice. When you meet Mr. Nighthawk, keep perfectly still. He"s a hungry fellow, always on the look-out for somebody to eat. But he has one peculiar habit: he won"t grab you unless you"re moving through the air.
He always takes his food on the wing."
Chirpy thanked his friend Kiddie Katydid for this valuable bit of news.
And he said he"d be sure to remember it.
"Well," Kiddie Katydid observed, "if you forget it when you meet Mr.
Nighthawk you"ll forget it only once. For he"ll grab you quick as a flash."
Chirpy Cricket pondered a good deal over the talk he had with Kiddie Katydid. It was clear that Mr. Nighthawk was a dangerous person.
"Perhaps"--Chirpy thought--"perhaps if I could get him to take a greater interest in his music he wouldn"t be so ferocious. Yes! I feel sure that if I could only persuade him to practice that booming sound it would give Mr. Nighthawk something pleasant to think of. Who knows but that he might become as gentle as I am?"
Chirpy Cricket liked that notion so much that he thought of little else.
He even began to consider making a journey to the woods where Mr.
Nighthawk lived, in order to meet that gentleman and offer to train him to be a better musician. And at last Chirpy had even decided to go--as soon as the moon should be full. He spent much of his time listening for Mr. Nighthawk"s _Peent! Peent!_ which now and then came faintly across the meadow, and the dull, m.u.f.fled _boom_ that often followed.
While Chirpy waited for the moon to grow full, one night an odd thing happened. The stars twinkled overhead. There wasn"t a cloud in the sky.
Yet all at once a loud _boom_ startled Chirpy Cricket and made him leap suddenly towards home.
"Goodness!" he cried to Kiddie Katydid, who happened to be near him. "Did you hear the thunder?"
"That wasn"t thunder," Kiddie said. "And you"d better not jump like that again. Mr. Nighthawk is here. He made that sound himself."
XX
BOUND TO BE DIFFERENT
Nothing ever surprised Chirpy Cricket more than what Kiddie Katydid told him. He had thought it was thunder that he had just heard. But it was Mr.
Nighthawk, making that odd, booming sound of his. It was ever so much louder than Chirpy had supposed it could be. He had never heard it so near before.
For a moment Chirpy thought that perhaps Kiddie Katydid didn"t know what he was talking about. But no! There was Mr. Nighthawk"s well-known call, _Peent! Peent!_ There was no denying that it was his voice. He always talked through his nose--or so it sounded. And one couldn"t mistake it.
Chirpy Cricket began to think that after all he would rather not have a talk with Mr. Nighthawk. He certainly sounded terrible!
Meanwhile Mr. Nighthawk alighted in a tree right over Chirpy"s head, and settled himself lengthwise along a limb. He was, indeed, an odd person.
He liked to be different from other folk. And just because other birds sat crosswise on a perch, Mr. Nighthawk had to sit in exactly the opposite fashion. No doubt if he could have, he would have hung underneath the limb by his heels, like Benjamin Bat. Only he would have wanted to hang by his nose instead of his heels, in order to be different.
"Has anybody seen Chirpy Cricket?" Mr. Nighthawk sang out.
"He"s on the ground, under that tree you"re in," Kiddie Katydid informed him. Kiddie never moved as he spoke, but clung closely to a twig in the bush where he was hiding. Being green himself, he hardly thought that Mr.