ore had an overcoat on his back.

"I've come here to-night to deliver an important message to you," Mr.
Frog went on. "And thinking the weather might be cooler than you liked,
I made you that fine coat so you could stay out here in your tree and
listen to what I have to tell you.... I hear--" he said--"I hear that
you're a musician."

"Yes!" said Kiddie Katydid--for he knew well enough that Freddie Firefly
could not have kept the secret.

"I hear that you're a fiddler," Mr. Frog added.

"Why, no! I've never played the fiddle!" Kiddie Katydid exclaimed. "I
don't know how to do that."

"Well, how do you know that you can't, if you've never tried?" Mr. Frog
retorted. "If you can play _Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did_, by
rubbing your wing covers together, there's no knowing what you could do
with a real fiddle and bow."

"That's true," Kiddie admitted. "I never thought of that."

"Well," said Mr. Frog, who appeared greatly pleased with himself,
"anyhow, I want you to join our singing society. Perhaps you've heard me
and my friends over in the swamp. Almost every night we have a singing
party there. And if you'll only agree to fiddle for us, while we sing, I
venture to say that we'll have Farmer Green getting up out of his bed to
listen to us."

Naturally, the invitation pleased Kiddie Katydid. But for all that, he
shook his head slowly.

"I'm afraid I'm too shy," he told Mr. Frog. "I like to stay hidden among
the leaves, where people can't see me."

"That'll be all right!" Mr. Frog assured him. "You can hide in some bush
near-by, where we can't look at you."

But still Kiddie Katydid wouldn't accept the invitation. Although Mr.
Frog teased and teased, all he would say was that he would think the
matter over.

"Promise me this, at least--" Mr. Frog finally said--"promise me that
you won't agree to make music for anybody else! Now that people know
you're musical, they'll be asking you to play in an orchestra, or a
band, or a fife-and-drum corps, or something. But I've invited you
first, and if you oblige anybody it ought to be me--especially after
I've given you that beautiful warm overcoat." The tailor looked upwards
into the tree so beseechingly that Kiddie Katydid hadn't the heart to
refuse his request.

"I'll promise that," he said.

"Hurrah!" cried Mr. Frog, opening his mouth so widely that Kiddie
Katydid couldn't help shuddering at the sight.

And then Mr. Frog leaped into the air three times.