ear 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.

III

THE STRANGE CRY

AS you may already know, Jasper Jay was a vain fellow. And it was not
only of his brilliant blue suit that he was proud. He was greatly
pleased with his own voice, though many of the feathered folk thought it
harsh and disagreeable. But, that, perhaps, was because they seldom or
never heard Jasper's sweeter, flute-like notes, or the soft, low chatter
which he kept for his most intimate friends.

What most of his acquaintances knew and disliked was Jasper's noisy
"_Jay! jay!_" But even that discordant cry suited Jasp