Read Ebook: The Tale of Jasper Jay Tuck-Me-In Tales by Bailey Arthur Scott

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Ebook has 379 lines and 16531 words, and 8 pages

THE TALE OF JASPER JAY

A NOISY ROGUE

At that season Jasper often visited the farm buildings, in the hope of finding a few kernels of corn scattered about the door of the corn-crib. But it seemed to make little difference to him whether he found food there or not. If he caught the cat out of doors he had good sport teasing her. And he always enjoyed that.

Jasper was a bold rowdy--but handsome. And Farmer Green liked to look out of the window early on a bleak morning and see him in his bright blue suit frisking in and out of the bare trees. Still, Farmer Green knew well enough that Jasper Jay was a rogue.

"He reminds me of a bad boy," Johnnie Green's father said one day. "He's mischievous and destructive; and he's forever screeching and whistling. But there's something about him that I can't help liking.... Maybe it's because he always has such a good time."

"He steals birds' eggs in summer," Johnnie Green remarked.

"I've known boys to do that," his father answered. And Johnnie said nothing more just then. Perhaps he was too busy watching Jasper Jay, who had flown into the orchard and was already breakfasting on frozen apples, which hung here and there upon the trees.

When warm weather came, the rogue Jasper fared better. Then there were insects and fruit for him. And though Jasper took his full share of Farmer Green's strawberries, currants and blackberries, he did him no small service by devouring moths that would have harmed the grapes.

But in the fall Jasper scorned almost any food except nuts, which he liked more than anything else--that is, if their shells were not too thick. Beechnuts and chestnuts and acorns suited him well. And he was very skilful in opening them. He would grasp a nut firmly with his feet and split it with his strong bill. Johnnie Green could not crack a butternut with his father's hammer more quickly than Jasper could reach the inside of a sweet beechnut.

You see, he was like Frisky Squirrel in that. He believed in storing nuts for the winter. But since he had no hollow tree in which to put them, it was only natural that he never succeeded in finding every one of his carefully hidden nuts. He left them in so many different places that he couldn't remember them all. Those that he lost in that fashion often took root and grew into trees. And so Jasper Jay helped Farmer Green in more ways than one.

But no doubt Jasper would have shrieked with laughter had anybody suggested such an idea to him.

A BLOW FOR THE BULLY

JASPER JAY had some queer notions in his head. One of them was that a person couldn't be happy unless he was making a great deal of noise. And if there was anything that roused Jasper's wrath, it was the sight of some quiet, modest little neighbor who minded his own affairs and had little to say.

There was one such chap who made his home in a wild grapevine that grew upon the stone wall in front of the farmhouse. His name was Mr. Chippy; and he was never known to do anybody the least bit of harm. On the contrary, he was quite helpful to Farmer Green's wife, for he went to the farmhouse almost every day and cleared the crumbs off the kitchen doorstep.

But Jasper Jay complained that Mr. Chippy was altogether too humble.

Jasper said a good many other unpleasant things about mild Mr. Chippy. And one day when the saucy rascal had nothing better to do he flew over to the stone wall just to talk to Mr. Chippy and tell him what he thought of him.

"Hi there, red-head!" Jasper Jay shouted. "Come out here on the wall! I want to see you."

"That's no way to greet anybody!" cried Jasper Jay, rudely. "If you want to make a person feel that he is welcome you ought to speak up good and loud--and slap him on the back. And you must look happy, too."

Little Mr. Chippy smiled faintly.

But Jasper Jay was not satisfied.

"You don't look happy!" he scoffed. "You appear as if you had a pain somewhere.... Come, now! Let me hear you give a hearty laugh!"

If Mr. Chippy had known that his caller was going to be so rude he would have stayed hidden in the wild grapevine. And now he wished that Jasper would go away and leave him in peace. As for laughing, he saw nothing at all to laugh at.

"You're going to be happy, if I have to break every bone in your body," Jasper added.

"That'll never do," Jasper told him.

"Maybe this will, then," said Mr. Chippy, quietly. And darting at Jasper Jay, he knocked him off the stone wall before Jasper knew what was happening.

Jasper Jay was furious. He scrambled quickly back upon the wall. But Mr. Chippy had vanished. He had dived under the cover of the grapevine and hid in a chink between the stones, where Jasper could not find him.

"I declare--" said Jasper Jay at last--"I declare, he's got away from me!" And so Jasper went off, shaking his head. He had never supposed that mild Mr. Chippy would dare do anything so bold as to knock anybody off a stone wall.

It is plain that Jasper Jay had never learned that one can be brave without boasting. And as he flew off across the road toward the river, Jasper thought he heard a peculiar noise from the depths of the wild grapevine.

It was only Mr. Chippy, chuckling to himself. For Jasper had made him quite happy, after all--though not exactly in the way that the blue-coated bully had intended.

THE STRANGE CRY

AS you may already know, Jasper Jay was a vain fellow. And it was not only of his brilliant blue suit that he was proud. He was greatly pleased with his own voice, though many of the feathered folk thought it harsh and disagreeable. But, that, perhaps, was because they seldom or never heard Jasper's sweeter, flute-like notes, or the soft, low chatter which he kept for his most intimate friends.

So Jasper Jay had little to worry about until at last something happened that made him feel quite uneasy. It was almost noon on a hot summer's day; and Jasper was resting amid the shade of a big beech tree on the edge of the woods, where he could look across the meadow and watch Farmer Green and his boy Johnnie and the hired-man at work in the hayfield. Jasper was just thinking how much pleasanter was his own carefree life than theirs when a long, loud call blared across the meadow. He had never heard that cry before; and he raised himself on tiptoe, listening intently as the sound echoed back and forth across the valley.

Though Jasper stayed quite still for some time, waiting to hear the cry again, it was not repeated.

"I'd like to know what sort of bird that was!" he said to himself at last. "If he stays in this neighborhood I'll have to drive him away, for his voice is certainly louder than mine. And I wouldn't let him come here and insult me like that."

All the afternoon Jasper Jay flew up and down the length of Pleasant Valley and back and forth across it, hunting for the strange bird with the loud voice. But he met no newcomer at all.

Jasper had almost decided that the stranger had merely been passing through the valley. He certainly hoped that such was the case, because he had no way of telling how big the unknown might be. If he were as large as his voice, driving him away might prove no joke for Jasper.

"It must have been that fuzzy caterpillar that I ate just before I went to bed," he thought.

Jasper was himself again all the morning. He had a good deal of fun teasing a kitten which had lost itself behind Farmer Green's barn. And he drove Jolly Robin's wife almost frantic by hiding in the orchard and whistling like a hawk. And then, at midday, his fun was spoiled. That strange scream smote his ears once more. And Jasper trembled both with rage and fear.

He knew then that the stranger was still in the valley.

JASPER'S BOAST

JASPER JAY had said nothing to anyone concerning the horrid call, which had sounded twice--each time at midday. But now that he felt sure the strange bird whose cry he had heard must have come to live in Pleasant Valley, he could no longer keep from mentioning the matter.

Chancing to meet his cousin, Mr. Crow, the next morning, Jasper stopped to talk with the old gentleman. You see, Mr. Crow was widely known as a gossip. He usually knew what was going on in the neighborhood. So Jasper thought it likely that Mr. Crow could tell him all about the unwelcome stranger. "Perhaps," he thought, "the old scamp has already seen him."

Of course, Jasper never termed his cousin a scamp to his face. He always spoke to him very politely, greeting him as "Mr. Crow," in spite of their close relationship. And there was a reason why Jasper did that. Mr. Crow had once given him a severe beating because Jasper had called him something else. And Jasper Jay never forgot it.

Now Jasper first inquired after his cousin's health. He did that to put old Mr. Crow in a good humor. But Jasper was sorry at once that he had started Mr. Crow to talking about his ills. It happened that the old gentleman was then suffering from gout, hay-fever and housemaid's knee. And he liked to talk about his ailments. Living all alone as he did, he had nobody to do his housework. And that, he complained, was the reason why his knee troubled him.

Jasper Jay fidgeted about while Mr. Crow was telling him all that--and much more--concerning his troubles. Jasper really did not care to hear about them.

"Yes! yes!" he exclaimed impatiently, for it seemed to him that old Mr. Crow never would stop talking about himself. "Now that we're having a good spell of weather you ought to begin to feel better. And what's the news, Mr. Crow? Have you heard of anything happening around here lately?"

The old gentleman shook his head.

"Things are quiet," he said.

"Nobody left Pleasant Valley recently?" Jasper inquired.

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