there were Crickets in the valley.

If there were hundreds—or maybe thousands—of Owls, and they all hooted at the same time, there’d be no sleeping for anybody. At least that was Johnnie Green’s opinion. And it does seem a reasonable one.

Chirpy Cricket’s nearest relations all looked exactly like him. Everybody said that the Crickets bore a strong family resemblance to one another. But there were others—more distant cousins—that were quite unlike Chirpy. There were the Mole Crickets, who stayed in the ground and never, never came to the surface; and there were the Tree Crickets, who lived in the trees and fiddled re-teat! re-teat re-teat! until you might have thought they would get tired of their ditty.

But they never did. They seemed to like their music as much as Chirpy Cricket liked his cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i!

The farmyard was not the first place that Chirpy Cricket chose for his home. Before he dug himself a hole under the straw near the barn he had settled in the pasture. Although the cows seemed to think that the grass in the pasture belonged to them alone, Chirpy decided that there ought to be enough for him too, if he didn’t eat too much.

He had been living in the pasture some time before he discovered that a very musical family had come to live next door to him. They were known as the Bumblebees; and there were dozens of them huddled into a hole long since deserted by some Woodchucks that had moved to other quarters.

Although they were said to be great workers—most of them!—the Bumblebee family found plenty of time to make music. They were very fond of humming. And in the beginning Chirpy Cricket thought their humming a pleasant sound to hear, as he sat in his dark hole during the daytime.

“They’re having a party in there!” he said, the first time he noticed the droning music. “No doubt”—he added—“no doubt they’re enjoying a dance!”

The thought made him feel so jolly that if it had only been dark out of doors he would have left his home and leaped about in the pasture.

All that day, between naps, Chirpy could hear the humming. “It’s certainly a long party!” 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.

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 begun their music. I do hope they aren’t going to have another all-day party, for I don’t want my rest disturbed.”

But he soon found that the Bumblebees were not tuning up for nothing. Before long they were humming and buzzing away as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

“I declare,”—Chirpy cried, although there was no one but himself to hear—“I declare, they’re dancing again! It can’t be long after sunrise, either. And no doubt they won’t stop till sunset.”

He began to feel very much upset. He could understand why people should want to make music by night, and hop about in a lively fashion, too. But by day—ah! that was another matter.

Being unable to rest, on account of the uproar from the Bumblebees’ house, Chirpy crept out of his door and stood blinking in the pasture. Soon he noticed a plump person sitting on a head of clover which the cows had overlooked. Chirpy couldn’t see clearly who he was, coming up out of the darkness as he had. But he was glad there was somebody to talk to, anyhow.

“Good morning!” he greeted the person on the clover-top, adding in a lower tone, “They’re a queer family—those Bumblebees!”

To his great dismay, the person to whom he had spoken began to buzz. And leaping nearer him, in order to see him better, Chirpy Cricket discovered that he had been talking to Buster Bumblebee! Buster was a blundering, good-natured chap. And to Chirpy’s relief, instead of getting angry he merely laughed.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Chirpy told him. “If I’m disagreeable this morning, it’s because I need a good rest. And your family’s humming disturbs me.”

“Why do you think we’re queer?” Buster asked him.

“Don’t you call it a bit odd—having a dance at this time of day?”

“Bless you! They’re not dancing in there!” Buster Bumblebee cried. “That’s the workers storing away the honey. They’re always buzzing like that. Perhaps you didn’t know that our honey-makers can’t work without being noisy. To tell the truth, they wake me every morning. And often I’d rather sleep.”

“Will they keep this racket up all summer?” Chirpy inquired.

“On all pleasant days!” Buster Bumblebee said.

“Then,” said Chirpy Cricket, “I’ll have to move to a quieter neighborhood. This humming every day would soon drive me frantic.”

“I don’t blame you,” Buster