The Adventures of Mr. Mocker | Page 5

doesn't sleep a wink!"
Everywhere he went Sammy Jay heard that shouted after him. Dozens and dozens of times a day he heard it. At first he lost his temper and was the very maddest Jaybird ever seen on the Green Meadows or in the Green Forest.
"It isn't true! It isn't true! It isn't true!" he would scream at the top of his lungs.
And then everybody within hearing would shout: "It is true!"
Sammy would just dance up and down and scream and scream and scream, he was so angry. And then he was sure to hear some one pipe up:
"Sammy's mad and we are glad, And we know how to tease him! But some dark night he'll get a fright, For Hooty'll come and seize him!"
That really began to worry him. At first he had thought that it was all a joke on the part of the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows, and that they had made up the story about hearing him in the night. Then he began to think that it might be true that he did talk in his sleep, and this worried him a whole lot. If he did that, Hooty the Owl would surely find him sooner or later, and in the morning there wouldn't be anything left of him but a few feathers from his fine coat.
The more he thought about it, the more worried Sammy Jay became. He lost his appetite and began to grow thin. He kept out of sight whenever possible and no longer screamed "Thief! thief!" through the Green Forest. In fact his voice was rarely heard during the day. But it seemed that he must be talking just as much as ever in the night. At least everybody said that he was. Worse still, different ones said that they heard him in different places in the Green Forest and even down on the Green Meadows. Could it be that he was flying about as well as talking in his sleep? And nobody believed him when he said that he was asleep all night. They thought that he was awake and doing it purposely. They might have known that he couldn't see in the night, for his eyes are made for daylight and not for darkness, like the eyes of Boomer the Nighthawk and Hooty the Owl. But they didn't seem to think of this, and insisted that almost every night they heard him down in the alders along the Laughing Brook. Yet every morning when he awoke, Sammy would find himself just where he went to sleep the night before, safely hidden in the thickest part of a big pine-tree.
"If they are not all crazy, then I must be," said. Sammy Jay to himself, as he turned away from the breakfast which he could not eat. Then he had a happy idea. "Why didn't I think of it before? I'll sleep all day, and then I'll keep awake all night and see what happens then!" he exclaimed.
So Sammy Jay hurried away to the darkest part of the Green Forest and tried to sleep through the day.

VII
SAMMY JAY SITS UP ALL NIGHT
Sammy Jay sat in the dark and shivered. Sammy was lonely, more lonely than he had ever supposed anybody could be. And to tell the truth Sammy Jay was scared. Yes, Sir, that was just the way Sammy Jay felt--scared. Every time a leaf rustled, Sammy jumped almost out of his skin. His heart went pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat. He could hear it himself, or at least he thought he could, and it seemed to him that if Hooty the Owl should happen to come along, he would surely hear it.
You see it was the first time in all his life that Sammy Jay had not gone to sleep just as soon as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had pulled his rosy night-cap on and gone to bed behind the Purple Hills. But to-night Sammy sat in the darkest, thickest part of a big pine-tree and kept blinking his eyes to keep from going to sleep. He had made up his mind that he wouldn't go to sleep at all that night, no matter how lonely and frightened he might be. He just would keep his eyes and his ears wide open.
What was he doing it for? Why, because all the little meadow and forest people insisted that every night lately Sammy Jay had spent a great part of his time screaming in the harsh, unpleasant way he does during the day, and some of them were very cross, because they said that he waked them up when they wanted to sleep. Now Sammy knew better. He never in his life had screamed in the night unless--well, unless he did it in his sleep and didn't