"I"ve some news for you," Mr. Frog announced, as soon as the old black scamp alighted near him.
"It"ll have to keep," Mr. Crow replied. "I"m on my way to the cornfield.
I haven"t had my breakfast yet. And a person of my age has to eat his meals regularly."
The sprightly tailor looked slightly disappointed.
"I don"t know whether the news will keep or not," he replied slyly.
"It"s very important. And I may have to tell it to someone else first if you don"t care to hear it now."
"What"s your news about?" Mr. Crow asked him gruffly. "I suppose you"ve made another suit for somebody. And you remember I told you I couldn"t put that news in my newspaper any more unless you paid me something.
It"s advertising. And n.o.body gets free advertising."
"This news is something entirely different from anything you"ve ever heard," Mr. Frog insisted. "It"s about Kiddie Katydid. He"s a----"
"Wait till I come back from the cornfield!" Mr. Crow pleaded.
"I can"t! I simply _must_ tell it now!" Mr. Frog cried.
"Very well! But please talk fast; for I"m terribly hungry."
"Kiddie Katydid is a fiddler," Mr. Frog announced. "He fiddles every night. And that"s the way he makes that ditty of his--_Katy did, Katy_----"
"Don"t!" Mr. Crow begged. "Please don"t! It"s bad enough to have to hear that silly chorus every time I happen to wake up during the night--bad enough, I say, without being obliged to listen to it in broad daylight."
"Very well!" the tailor yielded. "But he fiddles it, all the same. And when you tell my tale to Brownie Beaver I guess he"ll be surprised."
"I shan"t tell him," Mr. Crow declared, thereby astonishing Mr. Frog.
"Why not?" the tailor demanded.
"We"ve had a slight disagreement," said Mr. Crow with a hoa.r.s.e laugh.
"I"m not his newspaper any longer."
"Well, there"s nothing to prevent your telling this story to other people, is there? And you certainly will be willing to mention me at the same time, won"t you?" Mr. Frog inquired with an anxious pucker between his strange eyes.
"Where do _you_ come in, pray tell?" Mr. Crow inquired coldly.
"Why, I discovered the secret!"
"Perhaps you did--and perhaps you didn"t," Mr. Crow observed. Being very, very old, he was very, very wise. And he had long since learned that Mr. Frog was a somewhat slippery person. "If I spread any such news as this about Pleasant Valley I shall do it in my own way," he remarked.
And thereupon the old gentleman rose quickly and disappeared in the direction of the cornfield, without so much as a "Thank you!"
Mr. Frog gazed after him mournfully.
"If that isn"t just my luck!" he lamented. "I ought to have kept the secret till after the old boy had his breakfast. Then perhaps he"d have been better natured."
XI
A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER
Well, the day was not half gone before all the wild creatures in Pleasant Valley had heard all about Kiddie Katydid and his fiddling. At least twenty-seven people came to Mr. Frog at different times and told him the news. And he was furious.
"Old Mr. Crow has deceived me!" he complained. "I found out this secret myself. And now that black rascal"s taking all the credit for it."
"Mr. Crow has suggested that Kiddie Katydid be invited to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra," Long Bill Wren informed Mr. Frog. "They have no fiddlers, you know. And Kiddie will be a great help to them. Mr.
Crow has appointed a committee to call on Kiddie to-night and ask him to come to the next concert."
That was the last straw, so far as Mr. Frog was concerned.
"Mr. Crow might at least have put me on the committee," he spluttered.
"But he has left me out in the cold."
"Why, it"s not cold to-day!" Long Bill exclaimed. "Quite warm--I call it!"
"It"ll be good and cold by night," said Mr. Frog. "I look for a sudden change in the weather. n.o.body ought to venture out to-night without his heaviest overcoat on."
After flinging that remark over his shoulder, Mr. Frog flung himself inside his tailor"s shop and slammed the door behind him. And then, sitting down cross-legged upon his table, he began to think, wrinkling his low brow until you might have supposed he would need to smooth it out again with one of his flat-irons.
At last the tailor suddenly quit thinking and smiled very widely from ear to ear. And carefully selecting some soft, warm, green cloth he began to fashion a small garment, which was tiny enough to fit--well, to fit a person as little as Kiddie Katydid.
Being a spry worker, Mr. Frog finished his task by nightfall. And then, taking his handiwork with him, he left his shop--after locking the door behind him--and hid himself beneath a shelving rock on the bank of the creek.
He was in a very happy mood; for his ideas about the weather had proved to be good. It was already turning cold.
"If it wasn"t midsummer I should think we were going to have a frost!"
Mr. Frog exclaimed, b.u.t.toning the long coat which he had donned before going out of doors. "I wish they"d hurry up!" he added mysteriously. He kept a close watch upon his shop door. It was evident that he expected callers.
Not long afterward a crowd began to gather in front of Mr. Frog"s door.
"Back Soon" said the sign upon it. And the thinly clad, shivering knot of field folk sat themselves down unhappily and waited for the tailor to appear. Every one of them wanted a warm new overcoat, for each expected to be out late that night.
Meanwhile Mr. Frog watched them--and giggled as loud as he dared. It was Mr. Crow"s committee that thronged about his door--the people who were expecting to call upon Kiddie Katydid that very night to invite him to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Kiddie Took His New Coat From the Twig
(_Page 59_)]
XII
A PRESENT FOR KIDDIE