THE WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL The Story of The Cricket IN THE hard, cold ground which had been under a thick covering of snow all winter a stir of awakening life was felt. Many days before, the last of the snow had melted off and since then the days had become increasingly warmer until now the frost had begun to thaw out of the ground, leaving it damp, and still rather cold. However, with every warm breeze from the south new life sprang into being and thus it was that finally a few tiny, yellowish, oblong eggs began to feel the quickening impulse and develop. All winter these eggs had lain close by the side of a dead field mouse which had been buried in the fall when the eggs were laid, so that the young crickets would have plenty of food when they were born. The wisdom of this plan became manifest when our hero, along with several brothers and sisters managed to survive and develop and pass rapidly into the adult stage, while other small crickets who had less provident parents starved to death. This process of developing into a good sized cricket took him about a month and a half, but long before he was a month old our cricket began to shift for himself. His first kill was a nice, juicy plant louse, and his second was a wandering ant who was staying out too late at nights, and was therefore sleepy and world-weary. After this first taste of freedom and adventure, our cricket began to stay out later in the evenings and in less than a week he had abandoned the place of his birth entirely, and had set up bachelor quarters of his own. All of his brothers and sisters did the same thing, each having a little crevice or crack or a particular leaf under which to hide in the day time, and which served as a base for predatory operations at night. The whole family seemed to be a very unsociable lot, each member living by himself and hardly condescending to speak to any other member. Things went on in this highly reserved fashion all summer and so quiet was the conduct of the crickets that their existence was hardly suspected until one early fall evening when there was a slight chill in the air that foreboded frost to come. For some reason or other, the lower temperature seemed to awaken strange 26 THE WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL thoughts in the breast of our cricket. He remorsefully remembered how, on the day before, he had brutally kicked a young lady cricket off the fence when she accidentally got in his way. Now his conscience pained him and he wondered what he should do in order to make things right. After a short time the inspiration came to him and in a very few minutes he was over in front of that young lady's front door rasping his wings with might and main. Other crickets were doing the same thing, and everywhere the air was full of their chirping. This performance was repeated night after night until finally all the lady-loves were won and cold weather silenced the chirps forever. However, before that happened, our cricket and his lady went out for a stroll together, and while on this stroll they happened to find a dead field-mouse. They did not have to consider what to do, but went right to work, and when morning dawned the field-mouse was buried under several inches of dirt, and by its side lay several tiny, yellowish, oblong eggs. Robert R. Burton. A PRAYER Eternal Wisdom, I implore Of thee in humble prayer, no more Than but a part of Thy rich lore, To sing a song ne'er sung before! Anonymous. 27