HAPPY JACK FINDS A NEW HOME
They say the very darkest clouds
Are lined with silver bright and fair,
Though how they know I do not see,
And neither do I really care.
It's good to believe, and so I try
To believe 'tis true with all my might,
That nothing is so seeming dark
But has a hidden side that's bright.
_Happy Jack._
Certainly things couldn't look much darker than they did to Happy Jack
Squirrel as he sat in the big maple tree at the side of Farmer Brown's
house, and saw jolly, round, red Mr. Sun getting ready to go to bed
behind the Purple Hills. He was afraid to go to his home in the Green
Forest because Shadow the Weasel might be waiting for him there. He was
afraid of the night which would soon come. He was cold, and he was
hungry. Altogether he was as miserable a little Squirrel as ever was
seen.
He had just made up his mind that he would have to go look for a hollow
in one of the trees in the Old Orchard in which to spend the night, when
around the corner of the house came Farmer Brown's boy with something
under one arm and dragging a ladder. He whistled cheerily to Happy Jack
as he put the ladder against the tree and climbed up. By this time Happy
Jack had grown so timid that he was just a little afraid of Farmer
Brown's boy, so he climbed as high up in the tree as he could get and
watched what was going on below. Even if he was afraid, there was
comfort in having Farmer Brown's boy near.
For some time Farmer Brown's boy worked busily at the place where the
branch that Happy Jack knew so well started out from the trunk of the
tree towards the window of Farmer Brown's boy's room. When he had fixed
things to suit him, he went down the ladder and carried it away with
him. In the crotch of the tree he had left the queer thing that he had
brought under his arm. In spite of his fears, Happy Jack was curious.
Little by little he crept nearer. What he saw was a box with a round
hole, just about big enough for him to go through, in one end, and in
front of it a little shelf. On the shelf were some of the nuts that he
liked best.
For a long time Happy Jack looked and looked. Was it a trap? Somehow he
couldn't believe that it was. What would Farmer Brown's boy try to trap
him for when they were such good friends? At last the sight of the nuts
was too much for him. It certainly was safe enough to help himself to
those. How good they tasted! Almost before he knew it, they were gone.
Then he got up courage enough to peep inside. The box was filled with
soft hay. It certainly did look inviting in there to a fellow who had no
home and no place to go. He put his head inside. Finally he went wholly
in. It was just as nice as it looked.
"I believe," thought Happy Jack, "that he made this little house just
for me, and that he put all this hay in here for my bed. He doesn't know
much about making a bed, but I guess he means well."
With that he went to work happily to make up a bed to suit him, and by
the time the first Black Shadow had crept as far as the big maple tree,
Happy Jack was curled up fast asleep in his new house.