The Adventures of Mr. Mocker

SAMMY JAY SEEKS ADVICE

Sammy Jay had a headache, such a headache!  He had thought and thought and thought, until now it seemed to him that the world surely had turned topsy-turvy.  His poor little head was all in a whirl, and that was what made it ache.  First he had been accused of screaming in the night to waken and scare the little meadow and forest people who wanted to sleep.  Then he had kept awake all night to find out what it meant, and he had heard what sounded like his own voice screaming “Thief! thief! thief!” down by the Laughing Brook, when all the time he was sitting in the dark in his own big pine-tree in the Green Forest.

That was bad enough, but to have Jenny Wren tell him that she had seen him with her own eyes sitting in an alder tree and screaming, at the very time that he had been back there in the big pine-tree, was more than Sammy Jay could stand.  It was no wonder that his head ached.  Hardly any of the little meadow and forest people would speak to him now.  They just turned their backs to him whenever he met them.  He didn’t mind this so much, because he knew that none of them had ever liked him very well.  You see he had played too many mean tricks for any one to really like him.  But he did hate to have them blame him for something that he hadn’t done.

“It’s too much for me!” said Sammy Jay.  “It’s too much for me!  I’ve thought and thought, until my brain just goes round and round and makes me dizzy, and my thoughts turn somersaults over each other.  I must get help somewhere.  Now, who can I go to, so few will have anything to do with me?”

“Caw, caw, caw!”

Sammy Jay pricked up his ears and spread his wings.  “My cousin, Blacky the Crow!” he cried.  “Why didn’t I think of him before?  He’s very smart, is Blacky the Crow, and perhaps he can tell me what to do.”

So Sammy Jay hurried as fast as he could to lay his troubles before Blacky the Crow.  Blacky’s eyes twinkled as he listened to Sammy Jay’s tale of woe.  When Sammy had finished and had asked for Blacky’s advice, Blacky went into a black study.  Sammy sat and waited patiently, for he felt certain that Blacky’s shrewd head would find some plan to solve the mystery.

“I don’t know how you can find out who it is that’s making you all this trouble, but I’ll tell you how you can prove that it isn’t you that screams in the night,” said Blacky the Crow after a while.

“How?” asked Sammy Jay eagerly.

“Go away from the Green Meadows and the Green Forest and stay away for a week,” replied Blacky the Crow.  “Go up to the far-away Old Pasture on the edge of the mountain, where Reddy and Granny Fox are living.  Have Boomer the Nighthawk see you go to bed there, and then ask him to come straight down here and tell Peter Rabbit just where you are.  Peter will tell every one else, for he can’t keep his tongue still, and then they’ll all know that it isn’t you that screams in the night.”

“The very thing!” cried Sammy Jay.  “I’ll move at once!” And off he hurried to prepare to move up to the Old Pasture.