Chapter 1

A NOISY ROGUE

Some of the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley said that old Mr. Crow was the noisiest person in the neighborhood. But they must have forgotten all about Mr. Crow's knavish cousin, Jasper Jay. And it was not only in summer, either, that Jasper's shrieks and laughter woke the echoes. Since it was his habit to spend his winters right there in Farmer Green's young pines, near the foot of Blue Mountain, on many a cold morning Jasper's ear-splitting "Jay! jay!" rang out on the frosty air.

At that season Jasper often visited the farm buildings, in the hope of finding a few kernels of corn scattered about the door of the corn-crib. But it seemed to make little difference to him whether he found food there or not. If he caught the cat out of doors he had good sport teasing her. And he always enjoyed that.

Jasper was a bold rowdy--but handsome. And Farmer Green liked to look out of the window early on a bleak morning and see him in his bright blue suit frisking in and out of the bare trees. Still, Farmer Green knew well enough that Jasper Jay was a rogue.

"He reminds me of a bad boy," Johnnie Green's father said one day. "He's mischievous and destructive; and he's forever screeching and whistling. But there's something about him that I can't help liking.... Maybe it's because he always has such a good time."

"He steals birds' eggs in summer," Johnnie Green remarked.

"I've known boys to do that," his father answered. And Johnnie said nothing more just then. Perhaps he was too busy watching Jasper Jay, who had flown into the orchard and was already breakfasting on frozen apples, which hung here and there upon the trees.

When warm weather came, the rogue Jasper fared better. Then there were insects and fruit for him. And though Jasper took his full share of Farmer Green's strawberries, currants and blackberries, he did him no small service by devouring moths that would have harmed the grapes.

But in the fall Jasper scorned almost any food except nuts, which he liked more than anything else--that is, if their shells were not too thick. Beechnuts and chestnuts and acorns suited him well. And he was very skilful in opening them. He would grasp a nut firmly with his feet and split it with his strong bill. Johnnie Green could not crack a butternut with his father's hammer more quickly than Jasper could reach the inside of a sweet beechnut.

Though Jasper hated to spend any of his time during the nutting season by doing much else except eat, he was so fond of nuts that he always hid away as many as he could in cracks and crevices, and buried them under the fallen leaves.

You see, he was like Frisky Squirrel in that. He believed in storing nuts for the winter. But since he had no hollow tree in which to put them, it was only natural that he never succeeded in finding every one of his carefully