Then there was a still different whistle. It
meant “Danger very near; lie low!” When
they heard that, they flattened themselves right down
in the grass just wherever they happened to be, and
held their breath and didn’t move until Johnny
signaled that they might. Of course, there never
was any real danger. Johnny was just teaching
them, so that when danger did come, as it surely would,
sooner or later, they would know just what to do.
It surely was a funny little school, and sometimes
Sammy Jay had hard work to keep from laughing right
out.
SAMMY JAY PROVES THAT HE IS NOT ALL BAD
Sammy Jay hadn’t had so much fun for a long
time as he found in watching the funny little school
in Farmer Brown’s old orchard, where Johnny
Chuck was teaching his three baby Chucks the things
that every little Chuck must learn, if he would grow
up into a big Chuck. When they had learned to
mind without waiting to ask why, and had learned the
signals which told them just what to do when danger
was near, Johnny began to lead them farther and farther
away from home.
He took them up along the old stone wall and showed
them how to find safe hiding-places among the stones.
Then he took them off a little way and suddenly gave
the danger signal. It was funny, very funny indeed
to see the three little Chucks scamper for the old
stone wall and crawl out of sight.
The first time, two of them tried to squeeze into
the same hole together, and each was in such a hurry
that he wouldn’t let the other go first.
Then both lost their tempers and they began to fight
about it, quite forgetting that if there was really
any danger near, they surely would come to harm.
Such a scolding as Johnny Chuck did give those two
little Chucks! Then he made them try it all over
again.
Once he found a foot print which Reddy Fox had made
in some soft earth during the night, and made each
little Chuck smell of it, while he told them all about
Reddy and old Granny Fox and how smart and sly they
were and how very, very fond they were of tender young
Chucks for dinner.
The three little Chucks shivered when they smelled
of Reddy’s track, and the hair along their backs
stood up in a way that was very funny to see.
Then Johnny Chuck took them over to the edge of the
old orchard, where they could peep out over the Green
Meadows. He pointed out old Whitetail the Marshhawk,
sailing back and forth over the meadows, and told
them how once, when he was a little Chuck and had run
away from home, old Whitetail had nearly caught him.
He told them about Farmer Brown’s boy and about
Bowser the Hound and a great many other things that
little Chucks should learn about.
Now all the time that Johnny Chuck was teaching these
things, he was keeping the sharpest kind of a watch
for danger, and there were many times when he would
give the danger signal. Then they would all lie
flat down in the grass and keep perfectly still, or
else scamper as fast as they could along the little
paths which Johnny had made, to the safety of the
snug home under the old apple-tree. But even the
most watchful are surprised sometimes.
