The Tale of Jasper Jay | Page 4

knee. And he liked to talk about his ailments. Living all alone as he did,
he had nobody to do his housework. And that, he complained, was the
reason why his knee troubled him.
Jasper Jay fidgeted about while Mr. Crow was telling him all that--and
much more--concerning his troubles. Jasper really did not care to hear
about them.
"Yes! yes!" he exclaimed impatiently, for it seemed to him that old Mr.
Crow never would stop talking about himself. "Now that we're having a
good spell of weather you ought to begin to feel better. And what's the
news, Mr. Crow? Have you heard of anything happening around here
lately?"
The old gentleman shook his head.
"Things are quiet," he said.

"Nobody left Pleasant Valley recently?" Jasper inquired.
"Not that I've heard of," replied Mr. Crow.
"No strangers come here to live?" Jasper asked him.
"No one at all!" said Mr. Crow.
"That's queer!" Jasper exclaimed. "I was sure I heard a new voice
yesterday. And I heard it again to-day, too--at exactly the same time."
"What did it sound like?" Mr. Crow wanted to know.
So Jasper gave an imitation of the odd cry that had swept the valley.
"It was quite loud and very unpleasant to hear," he remarked. "And
whoever the stranger may be, if he's going to disturb me every noon
like that when I'm having my midday rest I shall have to drive him out
of the neighborhood."
"It's almost noon now," said old Mr. Crow, cocking his eye at the sun.
"Perhaps we'll hear the cry soon."
The words were scarcely out of his bill when a far-reaching call caught
the attention of the two cousins. It brought Jasper Jay to his tiptoes at
once. And he craned his neck in an effort to catch a glimpse of the
stranger who possessed such a powerful voice.
"There it is!" Jasper cried. "There's the call again! Do you know what
kind of bird makes that cry?"
Something seemed to have stuck in Mr. Crow's throat. At least, he
spluttered and choked and coughed. And he was quite unable to answer
just then. But after the mountains had quit tossing the sound back and
forth and all was quiet again he said:
"No small bird could make a sound like that. And if you can drive him
out of Pleasant Valley you're a better fighter than I ever supposed."

Mr. Crow might have known that his remark would not please Jasper
Jay. Jasper gave his cousin an angry glance; and he looked as if he
would have liked to fight him. But he had suffered one beating by his
elderly cousin. And he didn't care for another. So he only sneered
openly. And then he screamed in a loud voice:
"I'll find that noisy fellow and drive him out of Pleasant Valley, if it
takes me all summer to do it!" And he raised his crest, and snapped his
beak together, and stamped his feet, so that he looked very fierce
indeed.
But old Mr. Crow was not frightened in the least. He only smiled.
"Let me know when you've driven the stranger away," he said.
"Oh! you'll hear about it," Jasper Jay assured him. "It will be the most
famous fight that will ever take place in this valley," he boasted. And
then the two cousins parted. It did not put Jasper Jay in any better
humor to hear Mr. Crow's hoarse haw-haw echoing across the valley.
Of course, Jasper did not know what he was laughing at. But that only
served to make the blue-coated scamp all the more peevish.

V
THE SEARCH
AFTER telling Mr. Crow what he was going to do to the strange bird,
which he had never seen, but only heard, Jasper Jay renewed his search
for the unknown.
There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that the stranger could
out-scream him. And he knew he could never be happy so long as such
a loud-voiced rival remained in the neighborhood.
Jasper hoped, at least, that the newcomer was not too large.
"He can't be very big, or I'd have found him before this," he reassured

himself.
Though he hunted far and wide, looking in hollow trees and in the tops
of the tallest timber, as well as inside the densest thickets, Jasper could
still find no trace of his enemy--for so he regarded the unknown bird.
For several days he continued his unsuccessful search. And though that
same strange cry enraged him each noon, he was quite at a loss to know
where to look for its author. He asked a good many of the feathered
folk if they had seen a stranger anywhere. But not one of them admitted
that he had.... Jasper Jay thought it very odd.