Green Meadow Stories, Thornton W. Burgess [read people like a book .txt] 📗

to eat. And as he scurried along, he sang a little song.

“Thanksgiving comes but once a year,
But when it comes it brings good cheer.
For in my storehouse on this day
Are piles of good things hid away.
Each day I’ve worked from early morn
To gather acorns, nuts, and corn,
Till now I’ve plenty and to spare
Without a worry or a care.
So light of heart the whole day long,
I’ll sing a glad Thanksgiving song.”

Promptly at the dinner hour Happy Jack appeared coming from one direction, and Chatterer the Red Squirrel coming from another direction. They didn’t see each other until just as they reached Striped Chipmunk’s smooth, mossy log. Then they stopped and scowled. Striped Chipmunk pretended not to notice anything wrong and bustled about, talking all the time as if his guests were the best of friends.

On the smooth, mossy log was a great pile of shining yellow corn. There was another pile of plump ripe acorns, and three little piles of dainty looking brown seeds. But the thing that Happy Jack couldn’t keep his eyes off was right in the middle. It was a huge pile of big, fat hickory nuts. Now who could remain ill-tempered and cross with such a lot of goodies spread before him? Certainly not Happy Jack or his cousin, Chatterer the Red Squirrel. They just had to smile in spite of themselves, and when Striped Chipmunk urged them to sit down and help themselves, they did. In three minutes they were so busy eating that they had forgotten all about their quarrel and were laughing and chatting like the best of friends.

“It’s quite a family party, isn’t it?” said Striped Chipmunk, for you know they are all cousins.

Whitefoot the Wood Mouse happened along, and Striped Chipmunk insisted that he should join the party. Later Sammy Jay came along, and nothing would excuse him from sharing in the feast, too. When everybody had eaten and eaten until they couldn’t hold another thing, and it was time to think of going home, Striped Chipmunk insisted that Happy Jack and Chatterer should divide between them the big, fat hickory nuts that were left, and they did without once quarreling about it.

“Thanksgiving comes but once a year,
And when it comes it brings good cheer,”

said Striped Chipmunk to himself as he watched his guests depart.

XII Happy Jack Does Some Thinking

To call another a thief doesn’t make him one.

Happy Jack

Happy Jack sat up in a chestnut tree, and his face was very sober. The fact is, Happy Jack was doing some very hard thinking. This is so very unusual for him that Sammy Jay stopped to ask if he was sick. You see he is naturally a happy-go-lucky little scamp, and that is one reason that he is called Happy Jack. But this morning he was thinking and thinking hard, so hard, in fact, that he almost lost his temper when Sammy Jay interrupted his thoughts with such a foolish question.

What was he thinking about? Can you not guess? Why, he was thinking about those big, fat hickory nuts that Striped Chipmunk had had for his Thanksgiving dinner, and how Striped Chipmunk had given him some of them to bring home. He was very sure that they were the very same nuts that he had watched grow big and fat in the top of the tall hickory tree and then had knocked down while chasing his cousin, Chatterer. When they had reached the ground and found the nuts gone, Happy Jack had at once suspected that Striped Chipmunk had taken them, and now he felt sure about it.

But all at once things looked very different to Happy Jack, and the more he thought about how he had acted, the more ashamed of himself he grew.

“There certainly must have been enough of those nuts for all of us, and if I hadn’t been so greedy we might all have had a share. As it is, I’ve got only those that Striped Chipmunk gave me, and Chatterer has only those that Striped Chipmunk gave him. It must be that that sharp little cousin of mine with the striped coat has got the rest, and I guess he deserves them.”

Then all of a sudden Happy Jack realized how Striped Chipmunk had fooled him into thinking that the storehouse of Chatterer was his storehouse, and Happy Jack began to laugh. The more he thought of it, the harder he laughed.

“The joke certainly is on me!” he exclaimed. “The joke certainly is on me, and it served me right. Hereafter I’ll mind my own business. If I had spent half as much time looking for hickory nuts as I did looking for Striped Chipmunk’s storehouse, I would be ready for winter now, and Chatterer couldn’t call me a thief.”

Then he laughed again as he thought how Striped Chipmunk must have enjoyed seeing him pulled out of Chatterer’s storehouse by the tail.

“What’s the joke?” asked Bobby Coon, who happened along just then.

“I’ve just learned a lesson,” replied Happy Jack.

“What is it?” asked Bobby.

Happy Jack grinned as he answered:

“I’ve found that greed will never, never pay.
It makes one cross and ugly, and it drives one’s friends away.
And being always selfish and always wanting more,
One’s very apt to lose the things that one has had before.”

“Pooh!” said Bobby Coon. “Have you just found that out? I learned that a long time ago.”

XIII Happy Jack Gets a Warning

It matters not how smart you are,
So be it you are heedless too.
It isn’t what you know that counts
So much as what it is to you.

Happy Jack

A fat Gray Squirrel is very tempting to a number of people in the Green Forest, particularly in winter, when getting a living is hard work. Almost every day Reddy and Granny Fox stole softly through that part of the Green Forest where Happy Jack Squirrel lived, hoping to surprise and catch him on the ground. But they never did. Roughleg the Hawk