CHAPTER XI - A STROKE OF LUCK
JASPER’S fun would have been
spoiled if he hadn’t had a stroke of good fortune.
Since he was no longer leading the nutting party he
wanted to prevent his friends from following Noisy
Jake to the place where the oak trees grew, to have
an acorn hunt.
It was no more than anybody could
expect that Jasper should feel sulky. It had
been his party in the first place. So, of course,
he didn’t enjoy seeing somebody else take the
lead away from him. Most unhappy he was, as he
hurried along the mountain-side, when he happened,
all at once, to catch sight of a huge, grayish-brown
figure, half hidden among some hemlock boughs.
Jasper Jay knew right away that it was Mr. Solomon
Owl.
“Stop! stop!” Jasper cried
to his friends. “Wait a bit! Here’s
some fun!”
So the nutting party checked their
flight and returned, while Jasper pointed out Solomon
Owl’s motionless form to them.
They forgot all about the acorn hunt,
for the time being, because there was nothing they
liked better than teasing Solomon Owl when
there were enough of them. In case any of the
blue-coated rascals met Mr. Owl alone, he was most
polite to him, for Solomon was not only big and strong
but he had sharp talons and a hooked beak.
Those thirteen blue jays, however,
knew that they had little to fear from the solemn
old chap, so long as they kept out of reach of his
claws.
They began jeering at Solomon Owl.
And some of them even tried to mock his queer cry,
“Whoo-whoo-too-whoo-too-o-o!” The
woods echoed with their hoots. And Noisy Jake
shouted:
“This is luck! Aren’t you all glad
I found him?”
Now, of course, Jake had not found
Solomon Owl. If it hadn’t been for Jasper
Jay no one would have known he was there. And
Jasper was just about to remind Jake of his mistake
when he happened to think of something that made him
change his mind. It occurred to Jasper that if
Noisy Jake wanted to think he was still the leader
of the party perhaps it was just as well to let him.
Jake always talked so much, in such a loud tone, that
Solomon Owl would be sure to know him.
And Jasper thought he could have plenty
of fun himself, teasing Solomon and not saying a word.
Then so Jasper believed then
Solomon Owl wouldn’t know that Jasper was in
the party at all.
You see, Johnnie Green was not the
only person who held that Solomon Owl couldn’t
see in the daytime. Everybody knew that his big,
round eyes were keen enough in the dark. But
in the daylight he usually sat quite still in a tree
and stared as if he saw nothing at all.
Well, that was just what Solomon Owl
was doing then. He said never a word. And
he scarcely moved, except to turn his head helplessly
now and then, and blink, while his tormentors flew
as close to him as they dared and hooted loudly at
him.
Jasper and his friends made enough
noise to scare even a bigger bird than Solomon Owl.
And they said a good many rude things to him, too.
“How are Farmer Green’s
chickens this fall?” Noisy Jake asked him in
a loud voice, while Jasper Jay quietly amused himself
by dropping hemlock seeds upon Solomon’s head.
Still Solomon Owl made no remarks
at all. But he was thinking deeply. And
though some people claimed that he was not nearly so
wise as he looked, there were some things that he
knew just as well as anyone else.
But Jasper Jay was not aware of that.