Speaker 1: Section sixteen of Birds and All Nature, Volume seven n two,
Speaker 1: February nineteen hundred. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Betty B.
Speaker 1: Mole Cricket, Lodge, Bertha C. V. Sunnier. Mister and Missus
Speaker 1: Mole Cricket had folded their hands for the winter. The
Speaker 1: busy season was over, for the ground was all hard
Speaker 1: with the foot tread of jack frost, and the snow
Speaker 1: lay all over the lodge, a solid warm cover that
Speaker 1: squeaked and crunched quite musically when little boy Will rode
Speaker 1: back and forth on it with his sled. Dasher shadows
Speaker 1: lay rather heavily in the lodge. The caverns and galleries
Speaker 1: which had been built in warmer times were hung with darkness,
Speaker 1: and all was still in slumber. Side by side in
Speaker 1: the chamber, just under the long dead grass and the
Speaker 1: white snow, with a roof formed of tiny roots and
Speaker 1: loose earth, lay Mister and Missus Mole Cricket. It was
Speaker 1: the same chamber in which had lain the little white
Speaker 1: eggs that the warm sun had hatched, and from it
Speaker 1: the young crickets had gone out, already valiant to burrow
Speaker 1: their own galleries and seek their own food. Slumber had
Speaker 1: gone on in the chamber for many weeks when at
Speaker 1: a sudden sound, mister Cricket moved. We fancy he was
Speaker 1: cross at being disturbed. What's that, he said? Boy Will
Speaker 1: answered his wife. He's digging up the snow to make
Speaker 1: a snow man and shouting. He'll make us cold, grumbled
Speaker 1: mister Cricket. Then we must go to the cavern. But
Speaker 1: we can't. I'm as stiff as a stick. I believe
Speaker 1: i am too. The earth that covered their roof was
Speaker 1: very sandy and loose when not frozen, and as it was,
Speaker 1: that yielded redly to persistent thumps such as now fell
Speaker 1: about it. The snow was soggy, just right for building purposes,
Speaker 1: and boy Will, in his enthusiasm, scraped up a shovelful
Speaker 1: of dirt with the last bit of snow that covered
Speaker 1: the lodge. His sharp eyes saw something black lying beneath
Speaker 1: the little dead roots that had in the summer belonged
Speaker 1: to his forget me nots. He took the shovel. It
Speaker 1: was his mother's stove shovel, and carefully pried the dark
Speaker 1: bundle up and with his little red fingers separated it
Speaker 1: from its wrappings. Aha, he said, and ran into the house.
Speaker 1: Look a here, he cried as he ran up to
Speaker 1: his father's desk. Well well, said his father, looking at
Speaker 1: the objects through gold bowed spectacles. That's the same sort
Speaker 1: of fellow that we teased last summer with the grass blade.
Speaker 1: Tell me, said boy Will, in wonder. Don't you remember
Speaker 1: the little hole in the garden, And when I put
Speaker 1: in a spear of grass, how the fellow grabbed it
Speaker 1: with his jaws? I drew him out, and there was
Speaker 1: sir mole cricket that does so much mischief in the garden.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and now here are too. But they are dead, no,
Speaker 1: only asleep for the winter. The warm room will revive them,
Speaker 1: but they may die after all, they will have awakened
Speaker 1: out of season. I wish I could put them back,
Speaker 1: said boy Will. We will study them a little and
Speaker 1: then we will see, returned his father, as he took
Speaker 1: up his pen knife and pointed to the folded legs.
Speaker 1: Those big flat forelegs are what do all the mischief?
Speaker 1: They are like strong little hands and have claws on them,
Speaker 1: and they are used for digging. The main business of
Speaker 1: sir cricket is to burrow, and he works away with
Speaker 1: these hands of his until he will have made a
Speaker 1: number of underground passages. And in his work he will
Speaker 1: cut off hundreds of new tender roots that belong to
Speaker 1: plants and shrubs. And that's the mischief of him. What
Speaker 1: do they eat Why little bugs? But they are fierce
Speaker 1: hungry creatures. And when they meet a mall cricket that
Speaker 1: is weak and defenseless, they pounce on him and eat him.
Speaker 1: They are no respector of relatives. They don't deserve to live.
Speaker 1: Cried boy will with a stamp, But we can give
Speaker 1: them their chances returned, mister Ray, Now look at this one.
Speaker 1: There are two sets of wings, one outside and one inside,
Speaker 1: like grasshoppers, but much shorter. Here are two delicate feelers
Speaker 1: or antennae, bent backward, and two at the end of
Speaker 1: the body. I suppose those are for the purpose of
Speaker 1: discovering any danger that might approach them from behind while
Speaker 1: they are busy at digging. The jaws are toothed and horny,
Speaker 1: and so all in all we may put Sir cricket
Speaker 1: down in the same order in which are the katie,
Speaker 1: did grasshopper, field and house, cricket, cockroach, earwig, and so on,
Speaker 1: Which is the order orthoptera. Now come and show me
Speaker 1: where you found them. Boy Will led the way where
Speaker 1: stood his half built snow man, and mister Ray with
Speaker 1: a stick, felt about in the chamber for the opening
Speaker 1: to another cavity to the lodge. Ah. Here it is
Speaker 1: a warmer and a better one than the other, because
Speaker 1: it is deeper. And he slipped the two objects in
Speaker 1: and stopped the doorway with earth and snow. Well, I declare,
Speaker 1: said mister Mole Cricket from under his horny skin. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that? Why? Said his wife. They've
Speaker 1: put us in the cavern where we should have been
Speaker 1: in the first place. What a mistake it was to
Speaker 1: go to sleep in the nursery. Now we shall be
Speaker 1: quite safe until spring. Well, well, true enough, returned sir
Speaker 1: Mol Cricket, and they both fell asleep again. End of
Speaker 1: section sixteen.