mself said that he could eat off and on all night long, if he kept
moving.

Somehow Mr. Meadow Mouse had heard of this saying of Simon Screecher's.
"You ought to crawl into your hole under the straw whenever Simon
Screecher is about the neighborhood," he advised Chirpy one evening, when
the two chanced to meet near the fence.

"But Simon is around here every night," Chirpy replied. "If I stayed at
home from dusk till dawn I couldn't take part in another concert all
summer long."

Mr. Meadow Mouse said that that would be a great pity.

"Don't you suppose"--Chirpy asked him hopefully--"don't you suppose I
could jump out of Simon Screecher's reach if he tried to catch me?"

"You could find out by trying," said Mr. Meadow Mouse.

So Chirpy Cricket began to feel more cheerful. He even fiddled a bit,
thinking that he had no special reason to worry. And then all at once he
stopped making music.

Mr. Meadow Mouse had been searching about on the ground for seeds, while
he was enjoying Chirpy's fiddling. And when the music came to a sudden
end he looked up and saw that something was troubling the fiddler.

"What's the matter now?" he inquired.

"An unpleasant idea has just come into my head," Chirpy told him. "It
would be very unlucky for me if I found that I wasn't spry enough to
escape Simon Screecher!"

Mr. Meadow Mouse had to admit that there was a good deal of truth in
Chirpy's remark. But he said he was ready with another suggestion. "It's
a good one, too," he declared.

"What is it?" Chirpy asked him.

"You'll have to think of some other way"--said Mr. Meadow Mouse--"some
other way of being safe from Simon Screecher."

XXIV

FRIGHTENING SIMON SCREECHER

Mr. Meadow Mouse acted as if he thought he had been a great help when he
said that Chirpy Cricket would have to think of another way to avoid
Simon Screecher's cruel talons. But the more Chirpy turned the matter
over in his mind the further he seemed to be from any plan. For several
days and nights he puzzled over his problem. And every time he heard
Simon Screecher's unearthly wail he shivered so hard that his fiddling
actually seemed to shiver too.

Mr. Meadow Mouse inquired regularly whether Chirpy had hit upon any plan.
And at last Mr. Meadow Mouse announced that he would have to think of one
himself. So he sat down and looked very wise, while Chirpy Cricket
fiddled for him, because Mr. Meadow Mouse explained that his wits always
worked bett