Part 8

"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?"

"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?"