it is that's making you all this
trouble, but I'll tell you how you can prove that it isn't you that screams
in the night," said Blacky the Crow after a while.

"How?" asked Sammy Jay eagerly.

"Go away from the Green Meadows and the Green Forest and stay away for a
week," replied Blacky the Crow. "Go up to the far-away Old Pasture on the
edge of the mountain, where Reddy and Granny Fox are living. Have Boomer
the Nighthawk see you go to bed there, and then ask him to come straight
down here and tell Peter Rabbit just where you are. Peter will tell every
one else, for he can't keep his tongue still, and then they'll all know
that it isn't you that screams in the night."

"The very thing!" cried Sammy Jay. "I'll move at once!" And off he hurried
to prepare to move up to the Old Pasture.

XI

HOW BLACKY THE CROW'S PLAN WORKED OUT

"Thief! thief! thief!" Old Granny Fox, trotting along a cow-path in the Old
Pasture on the edge of the mountain, heard it and grinned. Reddy Fox,
sitting in the doorway of their new home under the great rocks in the midst
of the thickest clump of bushes and young trees, heard it, too, and he
grinned even more broadly than Granny Fox. It sounded good to him, did that
harsh scream, for it was the first time he had heard the voice of a single
one of the little meadow and forest people since he and Granny Fox had
moved up to the lonesome Old Pasture.

"Now I wonder what has brought Sammy Jay way up here?" said Reddy, as he
limped out to the edge of the thick tangle of bushes and young trees.
Pretty soon he caught sight of a wonderful coat of bright blue with white
trimmings.

"Hi, Sammy Jay! What are you doing up here?" shouted Reddy Fox.

Sammy Jay heard him and hurried over to where Reddy Fox was sitting.

"Hello, Reddy Fox! How are you feeling?" said Sammy Jay.

"Better, thank you. What are you doing way up here in this lonely place?"
replied Reddy.

"It's a long story," said Sammy Jay.

"Tell it to me," begged Reddy Fox.

So Sammy Jay told him all about the trouble he had had on the Green Meadows
and in the Green Forest, and how hardly any one would speak to him because
they said that he kept them awake by screaming in the night. He told how he
had sat up all night and had heard what sounded like his own voice, when
all the time he was sitting with his mouth shut as tight as tight could be.
Then he told about Blacky the Crow's plan, which was that Sammy should come
to t