The Merry Little Breezes are the friends of all the little meadow and forest people, but they wouldn’t be very long if they told everything that they find out.

     Their merry tongues they guard full well
     And things they shouldn’t never tell,
     For long ago they learned the way
     To keep a secret night and day.

And so when they found Johnny Chuck’s new house in the corner of Farmer Brown’s old orchard, they promised Johnny that they wouldn’t tell anybody, and they didn’t.  So it was a long time before any one else found out what had become of Johnny Chuck, for no one thought of looking in the corner of the old orchard.

The Merry Little Breezes used to come every day and bring Johnny Chuck the news, and he and Polly Chuck would laugh and tickle, as they thought of Peter Rabbit hunting and hunting and never finding them.

Then one morning, as Johnny Chuck sat on his door-step, half dozing in the sun with his heart filled with contentment, he happened to look up straight into two sharp eyes peering down at him from among the leaves of the apple-tree under which he had built his house.  He knew those eyes.  They were such sharp eyes that they were unpleasant.  He didn’t even have to look for the blue and white coat of the owner to know who had found his snug home.  But he pretended to keep right on dozing, and pretty soon the owner of the eyes disappeared without making a sound.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Johnny Chuck, “now the whole world will know where we live, for that was Sammy Jay.”  Then his face brightened as he added:  “Anyway, he didn’t see Polly Chuck, and he doesn’t know anything about her, so I’ll keep twice as sharp a watch as before.”

XVI

SAMMY JAY PLANS MISCHIEF

     Mischief may not mean to be really truly bad,
     But somehow it seems to make other people sad;
     Does a mean unpleasant thing and tries to think it fun;
     Then, alas, it runs away when trouble has begun.

Of all the little people who live in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows, none is more mischievous than Sammy Jay.  It seems sometimes as if there was more mischief under that pert little cap Sammy Jay wears than in the heads of all the other little meadow and forest people put together.  When he isn’t actually in mischief, Sammy Jay is planning mischief.  You see it has grown to be a habit with Sammy Jay, and habits, especially bad habits, have a way of growing and growing.

Now Sammy Jay had no quarrel with Johnny Chuck.  Oh, my, no!  He would have told you that he liked Johnny Chuck.  Everybody likes Johnny Chuck.  But just as soon as Sammy Jay found Johnny Chuck’s new house, he began to plan mischief.  He didn’t really want any harm to come to Johnny Chuck, but he wanted to make Johnny uncomfortable.  That is Sammy Jay’s idea of fun—­seeing somebody else uncomfortable.  So he slipped away to a thick hemlock-tree in the Green Forest to try to think of some plan to tease Johnny Chuck and make him uncomfortable.