When two rather stout ladies sit on Chester Cricket's home in the Old Meadow, the worm-eaten stump collapses and Chester, aided by his friends, is forced to look for a new home.
Old Cricket doesn't feel like helping his wife and neighbors to prepare for winter and so he pretends to have all sorts of ailments that require the doctor's care, but hungry Old Crow has other ideas.
Describes how chirping insects such as crickets, katydids, and grasshoppers produce their songs and use them to send messages to other members of their species.
A very quiet cricket who wants to rub his wings together and make a sound as do so many other animals finally achieves his wish. The cricket's sound is reproduced at the end of the book.