Little Busybodies | Page 9

"How many have you?"
"Oh, lots and lots!" the children answered.

"Bring them in." And the children trooped into the cabin, which they
thought quite the most wonderful place in the world. Its walls were
lined with books and cases. The books were not only in English, but
also in French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, and other languages, and
the cases were filled with scores of specimens, the most beautiful
butterflies, moths, beetles, birds, flowers, and rare stones. The floor of
the cabin was covered by different kinds of skins. Besides, there were
telescopes, field-glasses, magnifying-glasses, specimen cases, old
weapons, and a flute. And by the great wide fireplace, in front of which
the guide was cooking biscuits and cookies in a reflector oven, lay
several kittens, the old black dog, Thor, and a dappled fawn which Thor
was licking.
"Those crickets sound like pop-guns," said the old man, slipping more
cookies into the oven and setting a pan of biscuits on a shelf by the
hearth.
"Oh, please," said little Hope, "we've got bushels of them!"
"Now we'll let those cookies bake while we 'tend to the fiddlers. Are
four pans of cookies enough for five children?"
"Yes, yes."
"Now, Hope, let me have your bushel box. H'm," he murmured,
peeping in, "all dressed for the party. What color?"
"Brown, sir."
"Black, too," said Betty; "and on a few," she added, "there's a stripe or
a weeny spot of color."
"Oho!" exclaimed the old man, "what have we here?" He took a pale
little creature from Hope's basket.
"Why, it's white and green tinted," called Jimmie. "That isn't a cricket."
"Isn't it? Well, it's a first cousin which lives in the trees and loves its

tree home so much, like the sensible little fellow it is, that it sings
'Tr-e-e-e, tr-e-e-e,' as fast as it can trill all summer long. But it is very
harmful to the tree, because when egg-laying time comes it cuts a long
slit in the trees in which to lay its eggs. Just a minute!" The old man
shifted the position of the baker, and out came such a good odor of
cookies that all the children sniffed with delight. "Here, Jack," he said,
to a brown little fellow in ragged clothes and bare feet, "you have a
singer in your box."
"I didn't catch but one," said the lad.
"Briers aren't good for bare legs, are they? Never mind, your crickets
won't eat one another."
"Eat one another?" cried the children.
"Yes, crickets are cannibals, like some other insects, and they
frequently eat a near relation or a friend, as the people in the Fiji
Islands used to do. This is a nice brown little chap, Jack. Do you know
how he makes his music?"
[Illustration: A. File on wing of cricket. B. Scraper on wing of cricket.
C. Mrs. Cricket.]
"Why, I suppose," said the boy, "he opens his mouth the way Mr.
Tucker does in the church choir, and--"
There was a shout of laughter from Jimmie, who was sure he knew a
great deal.
"Well," said the guide to Jim, "then how does it make its music, since
you know?"
"Not with its mouth."
"Then how?"
"I don't know, sir," stammered Jimmie, who found he didn't know as
much as he thought he did.

"When Mr. Cricket sings," went on the hermit, "it lifts its two wing
covers so that the edges meet like the pointed roof of a house. Then
your little fiddler, Jack, rubs one edge against the other."
All this time Peter Beech had been waving his hand about, the way
children do in school, and giving big sniffs.
"Please, sir, the cookies are burning."
"Bless my soul!" The guide whisked the cookies away.
"Please, sir," said Jack, "are we going to have something soon?" Jack
did not look as if he had his share of food to eat, for he was as thin as
the fawn which had curled up near him. Jack had twelve brothers and
sisters, and a father who wasn't what he ought to be, so there were
times when there was no food for Jack.
"Yes, my son," said the guide, kindly, for the old man could guess how
hungry the lad was. "But, first, where do you suppose the crickets and
katydids have their ears?"
"Near those big eyes," called Peter.
"No, no, on the joint of the fore leg is a little membrane, which is just a
thinner, tighter place in the skin of the leg. There!" Ben Gile had the
fore leg of Jack's cricket stretched under the magnifying-glass. The
children could see plainly the film of tight skin. "Underneath the thin,
tight skin is a fine nerve which, when the air makes the skin shake,
changes the motion into sound. Mrs.