crikitty crik.

From The suns babies by Edith Howes.
Age Rating 2 to 4.

Start of Story

Mrs. Cricket flew busily round, looking for a good place for her eggs. "This will do," she said at last. "Here is plenty of food for them when they hatch." She flew down close to the roots of a soft green plant, pierced a hole in the ground with her piercer, placed the eggs in it with her egg placer, and flew off. "Just the very dinner I like best," said Mr. Beetle to himself; he ran to the hole, dug out the eggs, and ate them up. He thought he had them all, so he went away; but there was one left, hidden under a grain of earth. After a while it hatched out into Crikitty-Crik. Crikitty-Crik could not fly, or sing, or lay eggs, for he was only a tiny cricket-baby. All he could do was eat, but that he did thoroughly. He gobbled up every scrap of soft vegetable food he could find in the earth, and as his mother had chosen a good place for him he found plenty and soon grew fat. His front legs were specially made for burrowing, and his jaws were made for nibbling. One day he stopped eating and said: "I should like to fly." So he let his skin grow hard, and he shut himself up in it, and made his wings. He altered the shape of his mouth, too. "For I am going to suck leaves when I am a grown-up cricket," he said. When everything was ready he pushed himself out through the top of his old skin and left it lying on the ground. Then up he flew to suck the juices of the leaves. Such a handsome fellow he was--all green and gold and fine lace-work. And he could make music, for under his body he had grown two little flat sounding boards. When he moved his hind-legs quickly over these they made the cricket-song: "Crikitty-Crik! Crikitty-Crik! What a fine world it is!"