"What are we going to do?" everybody asked Chirpy Cricket at the same
time. So there was nothing he could do but mount the wall and make a
speech.

"Friends--" he said, in his loudest voice--"I'm glad to see so many of
you present. Our torchlight procession is going to be an even greater
success than the one that Farmer Green went to see in the village--if
you'll only follow my directions."

"We will!" his listeners cried.

"Please don't ask us to march after dawn breaks, for we'll be ready for
bed by that time," Freddie Firefly interrupted.

"I understand," Chirpy Cricket replied. "And now this is what I want you
all to do: you must fall in line one behind another. And when
everybody's ready I'll take my place at the head of the procession and
lead you all around the farm, and right past Farmer Green's window,
too."

"Forming a line is going to be hard work," somebody objected.

But Chirpy Cricket arranged that matter simply enough.

"Just form your line along the stone wall" he directed them. "The wall
is straight enough. And to tell the truth, that's exactly why I told
Freddie that we'd meet here."

"But what about Moses Mosquito and Kiddie Katydid and Mehitable Moth?"