CHAPTER II - A BLOW FOR THE BULLY
Jasper jay had some queer
notions in his head. One of them was that a person
couldn’t be happy unless he was making a great
deal of noise. And if there was anything that
roused Jasper’s wrath, it was the sight of some
quiet, modest little neighbor who minded his own affairs
and had little to say.
There was one such chap who made his
home in a wild grapevine that grew upon the stone
wall in front of the farmhouse. His name was Mr.
Chippy; and he was never known to do anybody the least
bit of harm. On the contrary, he was quite helpful
to Farmer Green’s wife, for he went to the farmhouse
almost every day and cleared the crumbs off the kitchen
doorstep.
But Jasper Jay complained that Mr.
Chippy was altogether too humble.
“He never says anything except
‘Chip, chip, chip, chip,’”
Jasper often remarked. “And his voice is
so high and thin that anybody would think he was a
little old lady, to hear him. He’s too quiet
to get on in the world. And as for a good time,
I don’t believe he ever had one in all his life.”
Jasper said a good many other unpleasant
things about mild Mr. Chippy. And one day when
the saucy rascal had nothing better to do he flew over
to the stone wall just to talk to Mr. Chippy and tell
him what he thought of him.
“Hi there, red-head!”
Jasper Jay shouted. “Come out here on the
wall! I want to see you.”
Mr. Chippy thrust his chestnut crowned
head through the leaves of the wild grapevine.
And one could hardly say that he looked pleased.
Like most people, he was not overjoyed by Jasper Jay’s
visits. But he crept on top of the stone wall
and chipped a how-dy-do to his caller.
“That’s no way to greet
anybody!” cried Jasper Jay, rudely. “If
you want to make a person feel that he is welcome
you ought to speak up good and loud and
slap him on the back. And you must look happy,
too.”
Little Mr. Chippy smiled faintly.
But Jasper Jay was not satisfied.
“You don’t look happy!”
he scoffed. “You appear as if you had a
pain somewhere.... Come, now! Let me hear
you give a hearty laugh!”
If Mr. Chippy had known that his caller
was going to be so rude he would have stayed hidden
in the wild grapevine. And now he wished that
Jasper would go away and leave him in peace.
As for laughing, he saw nothing at all to laugh at.
“You’d better do as I
tell you!” Jasper Jay warned him. And he
raised his crest and stamped angrily upon the stone
wall. “You’re altogether too quiet.
I want you to laugh loud.
“You’re going to be happy,
if I have to break every bone in your body,”
Jasper added.
Naturally, that threat did not help
little Mr. Chippy to laugh. Instead, he looked
quite worried. He knew that Jasper Jay was a bully.
And there was no telling what he might do to anyone
so small as Mr. Chippy was. So he tried his best
to please Jasper. But he was so upset that he
could manage only a feeble “Chip, chip, chip,
chip!”
“That’ll never do,” Jasper told
him.
“Maybe this will, then,”
said Mr. Chippy, quietly. And darting at Jasper
Jay, he knocked him off the stone wall before Jasper
knew what was happening.
Jasper Jay was furious. He scrambled
quickly back upon the wall. But Mr. Chippy had
vanished. He had dived under the cover of the
grapevine and hid in a chink between the stones, where
Jasper could not find him.
“I declare ”
said Jasper Jay at last “I declare,
he’s got away from me!” And so Jasper
went off, shaking his head. He had never supposed
that mild Mr. Chippy would dare do anything so bold
as to knock anybody off a stone wall.
It is plain that Jasper Jay had never
learned that one can be brave without boasting.
And as he flew off across the road toward the river,
Jasper thought he heard a peculiar noise from the depths
of the wild grapevine.
It was only Mr. Chippy, chuckling
to himself. For Jasper had made him quite happy,
after all though not exactly in the way
that the blue-coated bully had intended.