THE CRICKET 



left it alone, and gradually the wing-cases matured in 

 the inverted position. The Cricket was left-handed. 

 I expected soon to see him wield the fiddlestick which 

 the members of his family never employ. 



On the third day he made a start. A few brief grating 

 sounds were heard the noise of a machine out of gear 

 shifting its parts back into their proper order. Then the 

 tune began, with its accustomed tone and rhythm. 



Alas, I had been over-confident in my mischievous 

 straw! I thought I had created a new type of instru- 

 mentalist, and I had obtained nothing at all! The 

 Cricket was scraping with his right fiddlestick, and 

 always would. With a painful effort he had dislocated 

 his shoulders, which I had forced to harden in the wrong 

 way. He had put back on top that which ought to be 

 on top, and underneath that which ought to be under- 

 neath. My sorry science tried to make a left-handed 

 player of him. He laughed at my devices, and settled 

 down to be right-handed for the rest of his life. 



Enough of the instrument; let us listen to the music. 

 The Cricket sings on the threshold of his house, in the 

 cheerful sunshine, never indoors. The wing-cases utter 

 their cri-cri in a soft tremolo. It is full, sonorous, nicely 

 cadenced, and lasts indefinitely. Thus are the leisures 

 of solitude beguiled all through the spring. The hermit 

 at first sings for his own pleasure. Glad to be alive, he 

 chants the praises of the sun that shines upon him, the 



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