THE CLEVERNESS OF CHAIK JAY
Poor Chaik Jay felt a lot sadder than he looked when he saw the
Woodsfolk go skipping across the Broad Field one at a time so nobody
would notice them, on the way to Tommy Peele’s barn.
But he was a pretty sensible bird. “I’m glad they’re gone,” he said to
himself. “That was a fine idea of Nibble Rabbit’s to go away. Killer
won’t stay here long if he finds there isn’t any hunting.”
Pretty soon he was very busy exercising his stiff wing and thinking:
“I can reach every sumach berry in this thicket. They’re fine eating.
I feel better every minute. I’ll be able to fly before very long--if I
can’t fly across the Broad Field to-night I’ll surely be able to do it
in the morning.” He really did feel better. That was the funny part of
it. It wasn’t long before he had his feathers all prinked up and his
crest perked as sassy as if he were going courting.
“It’s too bad about those foolish mice,” he thought to himself. “The
bad old weasel can live on them for a long time if there’s nobody else
here to hunt them.” He thought harder than ever. “It would be nicer
yet,” he said after another minute, “if the mice would go, too. Killer
can’t eat clams and snails and bugs and roots and such things like the
rest of us Woodsfolk. He’d have to go away.”
But how could Chaik do that--just one lone bluejay with a hurt wing?
He kept on thinking, all the same; he thought so hard his head needed
scratching. At last he began to have an idea. “Isn’t it a lucky thing
they did leave me here? I can talk more bird and beast talk than any
one else in all the Woods and Fields, except Miau the Catbird. I wish
he’d happen along, I do. I could use him. If we could warn all the
birds, Killer would never be able to catch one. But the mice----”
And just them someone did happen along. It wasn’t Miau, but--but,
listen! It was the hoptoad! You know him--so terrible scary-ugly, but
nice as anything--the one who found Nibble Rabbit’s lost bunny. Well,
the hoptoad called, in his funny, gulpy voice, “Chirpy, Chaik Jay! Do
you see anything of the rain?” He loves rain because it makes the
wings of the bugs all waterlogged and it’s easy to catch them.
“Chirpy, Croaker Toad,” Chaik answered, “I can’t see a sign of it.”
“It’s coming, all the same,” gulped Croaker. “Floods of it. I feel
it.”
“It is?” asked Chaik eagerly. “Mice, oh, mice! How they hate it!” And
he bounced on his perch until Croaker Toad stared with his big round
eyes. But a lot Chaik cared!
He carried on at such a rate that a big saw-billed duck slanted down
to see what was the matter. “It’s going to rain,” he sang, looking
mischievously at the duck, his feathers all puffed out from laughing.
“Of course it’s going to rain,” quacked the duck, making a gawpy face
with his long red bill that set Chaik giggling all over again. “It’s
going to rain hard, and it’s going to rain soon. You won’t find it a
laughing matter, old soggy feathers.” (A duck never forgets to tease
the other birds about not having a nice water-proof coat, you know.)
And off he flew.
[Illustration: Chaik frightens the mice away to save them from Killer
the Weasel]
But Chaik Jay didn’t care a wormy thorn apple what the duck thought
about him. He was just waiting for a fieldmouse. The very first time
he heard one stirring out in the thicket he called: “Hey! Who’s there?
Is that you, Nibble Rabbit?” He knew it wasn’t Nibble, because Nibble
had gone away, but he said it on purpose.
“No,” came the answer; “it’s Scritch Mouse.” But I tell you he felt
kind of flattered at being taken for someone as big and important as a
rabbit. “I haven’t seen or heard anything of him since this morning.”
“Chirk-cheree!” exclaimed Chaik impatiently. “I do wish he’d come.
Won’t you peek in his hole for me and see if he’s there? I want to get
along myself before it comes.”
“Before what comes?” asked the mouse. “I’m perfectly sure he isn’t
there.”
“Before the rain, of course,” answered the clever bird. “Every one
else has run away, but I was to wait and warn him. There’s the most
terrible rain coming--I just heard about it from the saw-billed duck.”
(No mouse would ever dare to ask questions of a saw-bill for
himself--the bird would eat him as easy as quack at him, so Chaik went
right on adding to it.) “The birds coming down from the north had to
swim two days instead of flying. It’s going to flood these Woods and
Fields from the Brushpile to the Robins’ Roosting Tree--maybe worse.
It’s the worst----”
“Well,” interrupted the mouse, “it’s a funny thing nobody told us.”
“Oh, nobody told me not to tell you,” said Chaik. “But you haven’t
been very friendly with the Woodsfolk lately, have you?”
Scritch ran as fast as his claws could catch on the ground. He went
straight to the stump where Great-grandfather Fieldmouse, who’s so old
his ears are crinkly, lives with all his family. Every one was taking
an afternoon nap when he bounced right in and woke them. “Quick,
quick!” he squeaked. “An awful thing is happening. We must run!”
Great-grandfather Fieldmouse raised his rumply head and blinked at
him. “Eh? What? Who’s that? Was any one chasing you?” he asked.
“No,” said Scritch. “It’s worse than that. Hurry! The rest of the
Woodsfolk have gone already--every last one.”
“Ho, they left because they’re afraid of Killer the Weasel,” sniffed
the old fieldmouse. “But we’re not going. He can’t eat many more of us
than they do themselves. He isn’t like a bear who could tear this
stump right open and kill us all--but you don’t know about that. Bears
were long before your time.” They were long before Great-grandfather
Fieldmouse’s time, too, but he’s always pretending. The fat old fellow
set to combing his rumpled head with a stiff hind paw.
“That isn’t why they’ve gone,” squealed Scritch triumphantly. “They
just pretended that it was. They’ve gone because the ducks say there’s
a terrible storm coming. They say they had to swim in it for two days
instead of flying. They say Doctor Muskrat’s Pond is going to grow so
fast it will swallow up the Woods and Fields, and we’ll all be
drowned!”
“That’s what they tell you,” sneered the old mouse. “They don’t like
to own up that they’re afraid of a little beast like Killer.”
“But they didn’t mean to. It was Chaik Jay. He thought I was Nibble
Rabbit.” My, but wasn’t Scritch proud when he remembered Chaik took
him for Nibble! “And Chaik said they didn’t warn us because we weren’t
friends.”
“They didn’t, didn’t they?” snarled the old mouse. “We’ll show them if
we’ll stay here and be drowned.” That settled it. In less than an hour
Chaik saw the last mouse tail go trooping into the cornfield.
“Chay!” he laughed. “Now, Killer, you’ll have a hard time finding
anything to eat around this pond. I’ll give you two days to go back to
the Deep Woods where you belong. And you’ll be a whole lot thinner
than when you came, old slinky-sides.”
It was true, there wasn’t a single bit of fur for Killer to put his
teeth into when he woke up from his daytime sleep and went hunting.
But Chaik was determined Killer wouldn’t make his supper off a bird,
either. Every time one lit to drink at Doctor Muskrat’s Pond Chaik
would send it away.
He told some one reason for leaving and some another, just whatever he
thought would scare them the most. Once a whole flock of gorgeous
little fellows swooped down and he was puzzled. They were warblers
from the far-away south; they come up north every summer, but they live
all by themselves and speak their own language, so none of the
northern birds can talk to them at all. “Now, how in the world can I
frighten those silly little spiggoty birds?” he mused with his head on
one side, most discouraged. “They won’t listen to reason.”
Suddenly he began chuckling to himself. “If they can’t talk my talk
they can’t talk the marsh hawk’s, either.” He practised quietly for a
minute or two. Then he began to shout the hawk’s hunting call.
“Kee-yah!” he squawked. “Kee-yah!” And you should have heard those
warblers flutter their wings. They flew off without even stopping to
look behind them.
It was really a fine imitation. It fooled more than the scary little
spiggoty birds. It fooled the marsh hawk himself. He woke up on his
perch down in the bulrushes where he dozes until the mice begin to
stir for their suppers. He thought surely it was one of his sons who
was hunting with his mother over in the Big Marsh, on the far-away
side of the Deep Woods, where the Woodsfolk think the sun goes to
sleep. “What’s he doing here?” wondered the old bird. “Surely his
mother never sent him to tell me we were going to start south ahead of
the storm.” And up he flew, craning his neck all around and calling.
Of course Chaik knew better than to answer. He dropped down under the
leaves of the pickery thorn tree of the Quail’s Thicket and hid from
the hawk by scrambling around its trunk, keeping always on the
opposite side of it. “Lucky thing for me Killer the Weasel isn’t on
the prowl for me right now,” he thought. “I believe this is a poor
place to sleep. These leaves will let in ever so much rain, and if the
owls should take to hunting me from above and Killer from below they
wouldn’t be very long about catching me.”
Just then his heart ’most stopped beating; he heard a rustling beneath
him--right at the very foot of the tree he was hiding on. He squinched
himself flat tight against the bark so he looked like nothing more
than a bumpy knothole and peeked--into the smiling face of Tad Coon.
[Illustration: Chaik dropped from the tree and told Tad all about
everything]