Ah, listen to that cheery song. It is the cricket on the hearth singing thus gayly.
Dear little cricket; he lives in the corner by the fireplace. When all is still we hear his cheery chirp! chirp! chirp!
Sometimes he comes peering out and runs across the hearth, a little black fireside fairy.
Do you know one of the prettiest stories in the world has been written about a cricket?
Charles Dickens wrote it, and it is called "The Cricket on the Hearth."
Be sure to read this beautiful story. If you do not own it, ask to have it for Christmas. It is in the book of "Christmas Tales," a book that everybody ought to have.
Grasshoppers and katydids are pleasant people, but they live out of doors, and they do not seem quite so much like our very own little friends as the crickets.
Of course the crickets live out of doors, too, only once in a while one of them comes into the house to live with us.
We hear them chirping in the grass and among the stones.
