“You could find out by trying,” said Mr. Meadow Mouse.
So Chirpy Cricket began to feel more cheerful. He even fiddled a bit, thinking that he had no special reason to worry. And then all at once he stopped making music.
Mr. Meadow Mouse had been searching about on the ground for seeds, while he was enjoying Chirpy’s fiddling. And when the music came to a sudden end he looked up and saw that something was troubling the fiddler.
“What’s the matter now?” he inquired.
“An unpleasant idea has just come into my head,” Chirpy told him. “It would be very unlucky for me if I found that I wasn’t spry enough to escape Simon Screecher!”
Mr. Meadow Mouse had to admit that there was a good deal of truth in Chirpy’s remark. But he said he was ready with another suggestion. “It’s a good one, too,” he declared.
“What is it?” Chirpy asked him.
“You’ll have to think of some other way”—said Mr. Meadow Mouse—“some other way of being safe from Simon Screecher.”