something about Kiddie
Katydid. I found out his secret to-night. And I thought Mr. Crow ought
to know about it."

Now, Mr. Frog was all ready to leap into the water. But when Freddie
said that, the tailor promptly changed his mind.

"Kiddie Katydid's secret!" he repeated in a tone of amazement. "You
don't mean to say you've discovered what it was that Katy did?"

"Never mind!" said Freddie. "I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Frog. I
know you're too busy to bother your head with such things."

"Tut, tut, young man!" Mr. Frog cried. "I see you have something
important to tell me. And since that is the case, I'll manage somehow to
deliver your message to Mr. Crow, even if I have to disappoint a
customer. _Always oblige a friend!_ That's my motto!" said Mr. Frog.

"Very well, then!" Freddie Firefly replied. "I'll say what I was going
to; but it doesn't concern that Katy person you just mentioned."

"Oh, it doesn't," the tailor echoed. "Then I don't know that I care to
listen to you, after all. I thought you were going to explain about that
mysterious lady that Kiddie's always singing about." He was sadly
disappointed. And once more he turned toward the creek.

IX

MR. FROG IS PLEASED

"Kiddie Katydid doesn't sing!" Freddie Firefly told Mr. Frog hurriedly.

And Mr. Frog was so surprised that he almost sat right down in the mud.

"What do you mean?" he cried. "You must be crazy! For there isn't a
single person in all Pleasant Valley that hasn't heard Kiddie Katydid
singing his tiresome song on a fine midsummer night."

"That--" replied Freddie Firefly--"that is just where you're mistaken,
Mr. Frog. And that's where everybody else is mistaken, too. To-night I
was lucky enough to learn that Kiddie Katydid has been fooling us all
this time."

"You don't say so!" said Mr. Frog. "Then who is it that sings that
everlasting chorus?"

"Nobody!"

"Nonsense!" Mr. Frog scoffed. "I can be fooled once, maybe. But I'm not
to be fooled twice. And you needn't think for a moment that you can make
me believe any such thing."

"I don't care whether you believe it or not," Freddie Firefly declared.
"All I ask you to do is to tell the story to Mr. Crow."

"He won't believe it, either," the tailor retorted.

"Perhaps he will when he hears the rest of the message," Freddie
answered. "I was just going to explain that Kiddie Katydid has a trick
of rubbing his wing covers together to make that _Katy did_ sound."

"For t