THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME
Told at Twilight Stories
By JOHN BRECK
MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY
NIBBLE RABBIT MAKES MORE FRIENDS
THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX
TAD COON’S TRICKS
THE WAVY TAILED WARRIOR
TAD COON’S GREAT ADVENTURE
THE BAD LITTLE OWLS
THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME
[Illustration: Louie Thomson and his tame Jay Bird.]
Told at Twilight Stories
THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME
by
John Breck
Book VIII
Illustrated by
William T. Andrews
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
First Edition
CONTENTS
I. Chaik and Tad Make Themselves at Home
II. An Evening Party at the Thomson’s House
III. Chaik Makes Discoveries About the Holes Men Live In
IV. Dr. Muskrat’s Adventures in the Barn
V. Further Doings of the Woodsfolk at the Barn
VI. A Hungry Villain Fills Himself--But Only with Fright
VII. Killer the Weasel in a Weary Round of Troubles
VIII. Killer Finally Reaches Mouse-Heaven
IX. Mrs. Tabitha Puss-cat’s Secret
X. Many Things Thrashed Out
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- Louie Thomson and his tame Jay Bird
- Tad catches the rat that was killing the chickens
- Chaik begins to find out that living with house-folks is really
great fun
- Doctor Muskrat examines the White Cow’s drinking pond
- Doctor Muskrat makes friends with the ducks
- Killer wasn’t enjoying his visit to the Woods and Fields a bit
- Killer climbs the big hickory tree after Chatter Squirrel
- The Woodsfolk began bursting out of the straw pile, in and out and
up and down
The Jay Bird Who Went Tame
CHAPTER I--CHAIK AND TAD MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME
Prob’ly you’re all wondering what happened to Chaik Jay and Tad Coon
when the big rain began to fall. Chaik had hurt his wing. He’d have had
a bad time with it if he’d tried to stay in the pickery thorn bush, in
the Quail’s Thicket, down by Dr. Muskrat’s Pond. Tad Coon knew a thing
or two when he advised the bird to let Louie Thomson catch him. Well,
when Louie burst into his mother’s kitchen with Chaik holding on tight
to his fat, warm finger he was ’most bursting with pride. You know just
how you’d feel if you were Louie. Chaik felt just a little fluttery, but
he knew he was safe so long as the little boy held him. He waved his
well wing and put up his crest, but he never let go his hold on the
funniest perch he’d ever sat on.
Of course, Louie’s mother forgot all about the supper she was cooking.
“Oh, wherever did you catch him?” she asked. “Isn’t he a pretty thing? I
never knew they had purple on their necks--just like grapes hanging in
the sun. How do you s’pose he keeps all that white in his wings so
clean?”
“He takes a bath every morning,” said Louie. “I’ve seen him.”
Tad was out in the woodshed, by the pussycat’s dish, snubbing his shiny
black nose against the screen. He was sniffing the hot Johnnycake he
could smell baking in the oven. You know Louie promised him some--with
syrup on it, too. Pretty soon Chaik had his beak pointed at the stove;
he knew what Johnny cake was, because he’d had a taste of the piece
Louie brought to the pond. He was ’most as interested as Tad Coon.
Then Louie’s mother smelled it. “Heavens!” she exclaimed. “I clean
forgot my oven!” She opened the door and took the Johnnycake out, hot
and steaming. Louie took a nice crusty corner, right away quick. Of
course Chaik thought that this was the signal for him, so he picked up a
crumb--and his eyes fairly popped because he wasn’t used to eating hot
things. Then didn’t she laugh! “The smart thing!” said she. “He’s just
like folks. But your pa’ll be here in a minute and he won’t think this
kitchen’s any place for birds--not if I know him. Quick, Louie! Put him
down cellar in the cage so the cats can’t get at him. Here’s enough for
him and the coon.”
Down cellar they went, but Louie was careful to leave the door open so
Tad could run down and see him. And Chaik didn’t mind the cage so very
much.
In fact, he was as comfortable as though he’d been at home. More
comfortable, maybe, because it was pretty scary sleeping in the woods
with Killer the Weasel sniffing about to find his hiding holes. Anyway,
he was too full and too sleepy to think about it.
But Tad Coon wasn’t sleepy a bit.
He licked the last crumb of Johnnycake, and the last drop of syrup
Louie had put on it, out of his whiskers, and was just cleaning the
stickiness off his little handy paws when he heard something that
pricked his ears straight up. “Huh! That’s a funny noise in the
henhouse,” he said to himself. “It isn’t Louie, and it isn’t his
father--I believe I’ll take a look.” So off he marched, stepping most
carefully in the hard middle of the path where the men walk so he
wouldn’t make his tracks plain for any one to follow.
He thought about it because the evening was so dark he couldn’t see very
far ahead of him, but he could smell plain as plain. It was so fresh and
cool all his own fur wanted to puff out, but he wouldn’t let it; he
didn’t want anybody to get a smell of him. Snf, snf, snf! “What’s that
in the woodpile?” Over he jumped, so softly he didn’t make even the
scritch of a claw, then----
“Hey! If this happened to our quail folk out by the pond there would be
a fine goings on!” For it was the remains of a chicken. He craned his
neck to see who had put it there, but he couldn’t notice anything but
the feather smell. “That bird wasn’t killed to-night,” thought he. “That
was last night’s work. It wasn’t any owl. It wasn’t a cat--they’re
horrid, spitty creatures, but they don’t steal. Hist! I’ll know who it
was in about two whisks of a mouse’s tail--he’s doing it again!”
Pit, pit, pit, he tiptoed over to the henhouse. All the birds were
shrieking and cackling. “Help! Murder-r! Thieves!” The ones on the
far-up back perches were squawking. “Spur him! Peck him!” But the ones
who were down in front were only fluttering hard to keep high off the
floor on their clumsy wings.
Tad squinted through a crack. He could just make out a limp white heap
of feathers being dragged. He couldn’t see who was doing the dragging,
but--sniff! He went galloping around and around the house whining: “Where
did he get in; oh, wherever DID he get in?”
[Illustration: Tad catches the rat that was killing the chickens.]
For that thief was the biggest, oldest, grayest rat he’d ever seen, and
the wisest, too; he’d hunted right under the noses of Louie’s cats for
so long he had a whole lot more tricks than Tad had hairs in his
whiskers. But Tad played a brand-new one on him. Suddenly he stopped
right still. “What a cub I am!” he snickered to himself. “Old Sharptooth
will take that bird right back to the woodpile where he ate the other
one. That’s the place for me to wait for him.” In about three jumps he
was on top of it with his ears cocked, listening for the rat to come.
He was listening so hard he didn’t pay any attention when the kitchen
door slammed. Louie’s father was going to take a last look at his barns
to make sure the big rain that was coming wouldn’t do any harm to them,
and Louie was with him to carry the lantern. He swung it as he walked
and the light set all the shadows dancing. Tad Coon didn’t pay any
attention to that, either; he’d learned all about it down by Doctor
Muskrat’s Pond. But the rat did.
Pit-pat, pit-pat, swish. Tad could hear him coming, dragging his
chicken. In one lantern swing his eyes lit up like the headlights of a
little automobile, and he saw Tad’s ears, pointed right toward him. He
dropped his bird and jumped at the very same breath as Tad Coon. In the
next swing Louie Thomson’s father saw the white feathers lying on the
ground--and he saw the fluffy tail and frilly fur pantaloons of Tad Coon
diving down a big crown crock for a drain he was just going to dig.
“Here!” he roared. “That’s who’s been----” He was going to finish
“killing our chickens,” and he was going to lay it to Tad Coon, but he
didn’t have time. The crocks were laid out across the yard, ready to put
in. The first three were so close together even a rat couldn’t squeeze
out between them. Louie’s father caught up a shovel and slapped it over
the open end of the third one.
“We-e-ak, we-e-ak, snarl, snap, scuffle, scratch, wee-e-ee----!” What a
thumping and bumping was inside that crock! Then it was quiet. He moved
his shovel to peek in. He looked into the smiley face of Tad Coon, but
Tad’s smile had rat hanging down from either side.
“Well, I swan!” exclaimed Louie Thomson’s father. He said some more
things like that; the words didn’t make much sense, because he didn’t
know exactly what he did mean. But you ought to have heard Louie
Thomson! “Hooray!” he squealed. “Hooray for my coon! That’s the rat we
saw stealing an egg out from under the hen who set in the grain room
last spring. It’s the very same one. You said he was too smart for the
cats and they’d never catch him. But my coon got him! He sure did!”
“That’s some coon!” said his father at last. “Some coon! But how do you
know he doesn’t kill chickens, too?”
“Because he’s friends with all the birds down by the pond,” Louie
insisted. “I’ve never seen him eat a single one. Not even my jay with
the hurt wing--I’m pretty sure he could have caught him just as easy as I
did.”
“Your jay!” said his father. “Where do you keep him?” He thought he knew
everything there was on the farm.
“Down cellar,” said Louie. He was just a little scared that maybe his
father would be angry if Chaik made a noise, because he had got so angry
when Tad Coon did. “He’ll be quiet--I know he will--but I couldn’t bear
to leave him out in the rain. The minute it stops I’ll let him go
again--truly I will.”
“Hm! First thing I know I’ll have a menagerie instead of a farm,” was
all the man answered to that. “Give me the lantern. I’ll tend to locking
up the barns so the doors won’t blow off their hinges. You take a couple
of blocks from that woodpile and fix the cellar door so your coon isn’t
locked out. I guess it won’t rain in. And put some corn down there. The
mice are very bad again. He’s a mighty good beast to have around--that
is, if I don’t catch him after my chickens----”
But Louie was gone to fix a fine place for Tad to hide from the storm.