"Don't tell that to me, Sammy Jay! Don't tell that to me!" she cried.

"Didn't I see you with my own eyes sitting in that alder over there? Don't tell that to me! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

X

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 p.r.i.c.ked 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.

XI

HOW BLACKY THE CROW'S PLAN WORKED OUT

"Thief! thief! thief!" Old Granny Fox, trotting along a cow-path in the Old Pasture on the edge of the mountain, heard it and grinned. Reddy Fox, sitting in the doorway of their new home under the great rocks in the midst of the thickest clump of bushes and young trees, heard it, too, and he grinned even more broadly than Granny Fox. It sounded good to him, did that harsh scream, for it was the first time he had heard the voice of a single one of the little meadow and forest people since he and Granny Fox had moved up to the lonesome Old Pasture.

"Now I wonder what has brought Sammy Jay way up here?" said Reddy, as he limped out to the edge of the thick tangle of bushes and young trees.

Pretty soon he caught sight of a wonderful coat of bright blue with white tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

"Hi, Sammy Jay! What are you doing up here?" shouted Reddy Fox.

Sammy Jay heard him and hurried over to where Reddy Fox was sitting.

"h.e.l.lo, Reddy Fox! How are you feeling?" said Sammy Jay.

"Better, thank you. What are you doing way up here in this lonely place?"

replied Reddy.

"It's a long story," said Sammy Jay.

"Tell it to me," begged Reddy Fox.

So Sammy Jay told him all about the trouble he had had on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest, and how hardly any one would speak to him because they said that he kept them awake by screaming in the night. He told how he had sat up all night and had heard what sounded like his own voice, when all the time he was sitting with his mouth shut as tight as tight could be.

Then he told about Blacky the Crow's plan, which was that Sammy should come to the Old Pasture and live for a week. Then, if the little people of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest heard screams in the night, they would know that it was not Sammy Jay who was waking them up. Reddy Fox chuckled as he listened. You know misery likes company, and it tickled Reddy to think that some one else had been forced to leave the Green Meadows and the Green Forest.

That night Sammy Jay found a comfortable place which seemed quite safe in which to go to sleep. Just after jolly, round, red Mr. Sun went to bed behind the Purple Hills, Sammy saw Boomer the Nighthawk circling round high in the air catching his dinner. Sammy screamed twice. Boomer heard him and down he came with a rush.

"Why, Sammy Jay, what under the sun are you doing way off here?" exclaimed Boomer.

"Going to bed," replied Sammy. "Say, Boomer, will you do something for me?"

"That depends upon what it is," replied Boomer.

"It's just an errand," replied Sammy Jay, and then he asked Boomer to go down to the Green Meadows and tell Peter Rabbit how he, Boomer, had seen Sammy going to bed up in the far-away Old Pasture.

Boomer promised that he would, and off he started. He found Peter and told him. Of course Peter was very much surprised and, because he cannot keep his tongue still, he started off at once to tell everybody he could find, just as Blacky the Crow had thought he would do.

XII

NO ONE BELIEVES PETER RABBIT

Peter Rabbit sat in his secret place in the middle of the Old Briar-patch.

Peter was doing some very hard thinking. He ought to have been asleep, for he had been out the whole night long. But instead of sleeping, he was wide awake and thinking and thinking.

You see early the night before Boomer the Nighthawk had told Peter that Sammy Jay was up in the far-away Old Pasture. Boomer had seen him going to bed there and had come straight down to tell Peter. This was great news, and Peter could hardly wait for Boomer to stop talking, he was so anxious to spread the news over the Green Meadows and through the Green Forest, for Peter is a great gossip and cannot keep his tongue still.

So he had hurried this way and that way, telling every one he met how Sammy Jay had moved away to the Old Pasture. But no one believed him.

"Wait and see! Wait and see!" said Jimmy Skunk.

"It's just a trick," said Bobby c.o.o.n.

"But Boomer the Nighthawk saw him up there going to bed and talked with him!" cried Peter Rabbit.

"Perhaps he did and then again perhaps he didn't," replied Bobby c.o.o.n, carefully washing an ear of sweet milky corn that he had brought down to the Laughing Brook from Farmer Brown's corn-field, for Bobby c.o.o.n is very, very neat and always washes his food before eating. "For my part," he continued, "I believe that Boomer the Nighthawk just made up that story to help Sammy Jay fool us."

"But that would be a wrong story, and I don't believe that Boomer would do anything like that!" cried Peter.

Just then there was a shrill scream of "Thief! thief! thief!" over in the alder bushes. It certainly sounded like Sammy Jay's voice.