Green Meadow Stories - Thornton W. Burgess (best novels for students txt) 📗

nimble cousin, Chatterer. So Happy Jack was the first to stop. He sat on a branch ’way up in the top of the tall hickory tree and glared across at Chatterer, who sat on a branch on the other side of the tall tree.

“Couldn’t catch me, could you, smarty?” taunted Chatterer.

“You just wait until I do! I’ll make you sorry you ever came near my hickory tree,” snapped Happy Jack.

“I’m waiting. Besides, it isn’t your tree any more than it’s mine,” replied Chatterer, and made a face at Happy Jack.

Happy Jack hopped up as if he meant to begin the chase again, but he had a pain in his side from running so hard and so long, and so he sat down again. Right down in his heart Happy Jack knew that Chatterer was right, that the tree didn’t belong to him any more than to his cousin. But when he thought of all those big, fat nuts with which the tall hickory tree had been loaded, greedy thoughts chased out all thoughts of right and he said to himself again, as he had said when he first saw his cousin, that Chatterer shouldn’t have one of them. He stopped scolding long enough to steal a look at them, and then⁠—what do you think Happy Jack did? Why, he gave such a jump of surprise that he nearly lost his balance. Not a nut was to be seen!

Happy Jack blinked. Then, he rubbed his eyes and looked again. He couldn’t see a nut anywhere! There were the husks in which the nuts had grown big and fat until they were ripe, but now every husk was empty. Chatterer saw the queer look on Happy Jack’s face, and he looked too. Now Chatterer the Red Squirrel had very quick wits, and he guessed right away what had happened. He knew that while they had been quarreling and racing over the top of the tall hickory tree, they must have knocked down all the nuts, which were just ready to fall anyway. Like a little red flash, Chatterer started down the tree. Then Happy Jack guessed too, and down he started as fast as he could go, crying, “Stop, thief!” all the way.

When he reached the ground, there was Chatterer scurrying around and poking under the fallen leaves, but he hadn’t found a single nut. Happy Jack couldn’t stop to quarrel any more, because you see he was afraid that Chatterer would find the biggest and fattest nuts, so he began to scurry around and hunt too. It was queer, very queer, how those nuts could have hidden so! They hunted and hunted, but no nuts were to be found. Then they stopped and stared up at the top of the tall hickory tree. Not a nut could they see. Then they stared at each other, and gradually a foolish, a very foolish look crept over each face.

“Where⁠—where do you suppose they have gone?” asked Happy Jack in a queer-sounding voice.

Just then they heard someone laughing fit to kill himself. It was Peter Rabbit.

“Did you take our hickory nuts?” they both shouted angrily.

“No,” replied Peter, “no, I didn’t take them, though they were not yours, anyway!” And then he went off into another fit of laughter, for Peter had seen Striped Chipmunk very hard at work taking away those very nuts while his two big cousins had been quarreling in the treetop.

V Happy Jack Suspects Striped Chipmunk

Thrift is one test of true loyalty to your country.

Happy Jack

Happy Jack didn’t look happy a bit. Indeed, Happy Jack looked very unhappy. You see, he looked just as he felt. He had set his heart on having all the big, fat nuts that he had found in the top of that tall hickory tree, and now, instead of having all of them, he hadn’t any of them. Worse still, he knew right down in his heart that it was his own fault. He had been too greedy. But what had become of those nuts?

Happy Jack was studying about this as he sat with his back against a big chestnut tree. He remembered how hard Peter Rabbit had laughed when Happy Jack and his cousin, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, had been so surprised because they could not find the nuts they had knocked down. Peter hadn’t taken them, for Peter has no use for them, but he must know what had become of them, for he was still laughing as he had gone off down the Lone Little Path. While he was thinking of all this, Happy Jack’s bright eyes had been wide open, as they usually are, so that no danger should come near. Suddenly they saw something moving among the brown-and-yellow leaves on the ground. Happy Jack looked sharply, and then a sudden thought popped into his head.

“Hi, there, Cousin Chipmunk!” he shouted.

“Hi, there, your own self!” replied Striped Chipmunk, for it was he.

“What are you doing down there?” asked Happy Jack.

“Looking for hickory nuts,” replied Striped Chipmunk, and his eyes twinkled as he said it, for there wasn’t a hickory tree near.

Happy Jack looked hard at Striped Chipmunk, for that sudden thought which had popped into his head when he first saw Striped Chipmunk was growing into a strong, a very strong, suspicion that Striped Chipmunk knew something about those lost hickory nuts. But Striped Chipmunk looked back at him so innocently that Happy Jack didn’t know just what to think.

“Have you begun to fill your storehouse for winter yet?” inquired Happy Jack.

“Of course I have. I don’t mean to let Jack Frost catch me with an empty storehouse,” replied Striped Chipmunk.

“When leaves turn yellow, brown, and red,
And nuts come pitter, patter down;
When days are short and swiftly sped,
And Autumn wears her colored gown,
I’m up before old Mr. Sun
His nightcap has a chance to doff,
And have my day’s work well begun
When others kick their bedclothes off.”

“What are you filling your storehouse with?” asked Happy