y!" 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.

IV

TOO MUCH MUSIC

It was just beginning to grow light in the east when Chirpy Cricket
crawled into his hole in the pasture, after his fiddling with his
favorite cousin. Having spent a good deal of the previous day in
listening to the humming of the musical Bumblebee family, who lived next
door to him, Chirpy was more than ready to rest.

All was quiet at that hour of the morning, except for the creaky fiddling
of a relation of Chirpy's who didn't appear to know that it was time to
go home. But Chirpy Cricket didn't mind that. Fiddling never bothered
him.

He never knew whether he had fallen asleep or not. He may have been only
day-dreaming. Anyhow, all at once he noticed a rumbling sound, which grew
louder and louder as he listened.

"They're at it again!" Chirpy Cricket exclaimed. "The Bumblebee family
have b