laying. Or at least she acted as if she thought it the most
beautiful music in the whole world.

Tommy Tree Cricket was not so intent upon his fiddling that he couldn't
roll his eyes towards his fair listener. And Chirpy was not slow to
understand that it was for her that Tommy was playing his _re-teat!
re-teat! re-teat!_

"I'll wait here until he rests," Chirpy said to himself. "Then I'll ask
him again what he knows about Mr. Mole Cricket."

Well, Chirpy waited and waited. But it seemed to him that as the night
lengthened Tommy Tree Cricket fiddled all the faster. And if the weather
hadn't turned colder along toward morning probably he wouldn't have had a
chance to speak to Tommy again.

Anyhow, a cool wind began to whip around the side of Blue Mountain and
sweep through Pleasant Valley. And the moment it struck Tommy Tree
Cricket he began to play more slowly. Little by little a longer pause
crept between his _re-teats_. And at last the pale miss beside him cried,
"I hope you're not going to stop your beautiful fiddling!"

"I fear I'll have to," Tommy told her with a sigh. "I'm beginning to feel
a bit stiff, with this north wind blowing on me."

This was Chirpy Cricket's chance.

"Please!" he called. "Will you listen to me a moment?"

"What! Have you come back again?" Tommy Tree Cricket sang out.

"No! I've been here all the time," Chirpy explained. "I've been waiting
for hours to have a talk with you."

"Very well!" Tommy answered. "It's too cold for me to fiddle any more. So
talk away! And you'd better be quick about it, for the night's almost
gone."

But somehow Chirpy Cricket felt that his chat could wait a little longer.
If the pale young person clinging to the raspberry bush near Tommy Tree
Cricket loved music, he thought it was a pity to disappoint her.

"You may feel too cold to fiddle; but I don't!" Chirpy said. "I'm quite
warm down here on the ground. This little hollow where I'm sitting is
sheltered from the wind. So I'll fiddle for your friend." As he spoke he
began to play.

Looks as of great pain came over the pale faces of his two listeners in
the raspberry bush. And they shuddered so violently that they had to
cling tightly to their seats to keep from falling.

"My friend thanks you. But she says she doesn't care for your fiddling,"
Tommy Tree Cricket called down to Chirpy. "She says it's too squeaky."

Chirpy Cricket was fiddling so hard by that time that he never heard a
word. And wh