ery cheerful mood."

So Chirpy Cricket began his _cr-r-r-i!_ _cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!_ while Mr.
Meadow Mouse moved nearer and watched him closely. After a time he began
to fidget. And at last he asked Chirpy if he wouldn't please be still for
a moment, because there was something he wanted to say.

Chirpy stopped fiddling.

"I notice," said Mr. Meadow Mouse, "that you're having some trouble
tuning up your fiddle. So if you don't mind I'll go over in the cornfield
on a matter of business and come back here later. Then, no doubt, you'll
be all ready to play a tune for me."

Chirpy Cricket had to explain that he had been playing a tune all the
time--that he always played on one note.

So Mr. Meadow Mouse stayed and heard more of the fiddling. He begged
Chirpy's pardon for his mistake. And he said that if he only had a fiddle
he should like to learn the same tune himself. "Although," he added, "it
must be very difficult to play always on the same note. It must take a
great deal of practice."

XXIII

A WAIL IN THE DARK

There was an odd cry that often interrupted the nightly concerts of the
Cricket family. Chirpy Cricket had never heard it in the daytime. But
when twilight began to wrap Pleasant Valley in its shadows, the strange,
wailing call was almost sure to come quavering through the air. Somehow
it always sent a shiver over Chirpy. And sometimes it made him lose a few
notes--if he happened to be fiddling when he heard it.

He learned that it was a dangerous bird known as Simon Screecher--a
cousin of Solomon Owl--that made this uncanny call. If he had lived, like
Solomon, across the meadow in the hemlock woods, Chirpy Cricket would
have paid less heed to the noise he made. But Simon Screecher had his
home in a hollow apple tree in Farmer Green's orchard.

It was said--by those that claimed to know--that Simon Screecher slept in
the daytime. But every tiny night-creature--the Katydids and the Crickets
and all the rest--knew that after sunset Simon Screecher was as wide
awake as anybody.

It was no wonder that Chirpy Cricket was always uneasy when Simon
screeched his warning that he was awake and looking for his supper.
Chirpy knew that he could not depend on Simon to stay long in one place.
Though you heard his screech in the orchard one moment, you might see him
in the farmyard soon afterward. He never ate a whole meal in just one
spot, but preferred to move about wherever his fancy took him. Simon
hi