Happy Jack

“ That love and love make more.
Happy Jack.
Go ask Happy Jack Squirrel. He knows. He knows because he has proved it. It began when Farmer Brown's boy saved him from Shadow the Weasel. Perhaps I should say when Farmer Brown's boy and Tommy Tit saved him, for if it hadn't been for Tommy, it never would have entered Happy Jack's head to run to Farmer Brown's boy. After that, of course, Happy Jack and Farmer Brown's boy became great friends. Farmer Brown's boy came over to the Green Forest every day to see Happy Jack, and always he had the most delicious nuts in his pockets. ”

“ Happy Jack, crippling painfully on the stones, fled fruitlessly after, still shouting threats. Then, as Stranger, galloping wildly, disappeared over a ridge, he stood and stared stupidly at the place where the horse had last been seen. For the moment his mind refused to grasp all the horror of his position; he stepped gingerly over the hot sand and rocks, sought the shelter of a bit of overhanging bank, and sat dazedly down upon a rock too warm for comfort. He shifted uneasily to the sand beside, found that still hotter, and returned to the rock. ”

“ But no good comes of worrying. No, Sir, not a bit of good comes of worrying, and Happy Jack knows it.
"All I can do is to watch out and not be careless," said he, and dropped the shell of a nut on the head of Reddy Fox, who happened to be passing under the tree in which Happy Jack was sitting. Reddy looked up and showed his teeth angrily. Happy Jack laughed and scampered away through the tree-tops to another part of the Green Forest where he had some very secret stores of nuts. ”

“ There's nothing like a good breakfast to make one happy," said Sammy Jay, helping himself to some suet tied to a branch of the maple tree. "By the way, I saw an old friend of yours yesterday. He inquired after you particularly. He didn't exactly send his love, but he said that he hoped you are as well and fat as ever, and that he will see you again some time. He said that he didn't know of any one he likes to look at better than you."
Happy Jack looked flattered. ”

“ He hoped the Old Man would not send him on that long trip with them south of the Highwoods—which is what he was on his way to find out about. What Happy Jack was hoping for, was to have the Old Man—as represented by Chip—send one of the boys back with him to bring over what Flying U cattle had been gathered, together with Happy's bed and string of horses. Then he would ride with the Happy Family on the familiar range that was better, in his eyes, than any other range that ever lay outdoors—and the Shonkin outfit could go to granny. ”

“ Happy Jack grunted, still not quite sure of how much—or how little—they knew. While they discussed further the wild man, he watched furtively for the surreptitious lowering of lids that would betray their insincerity. When they appealed to him for an opinion of some phase of the subject, he answered with caution. He tried to turn the talk to his experiences on the Shonkin range, and found the wild man cropping up with disheartening persistency. He shifted often in the saddle, because of the deep sunburns which smarted continually and maddeningly. ”

“ The Happy Family held itself physically, mentally, morally and socially far above sheepherders—and in that lay the safety of Happy Jack.
It was nearly noon when he reached again the sheep camp, and the Swede hospitably urged him to stay and eat with him; but Happy Jack would not tarry, for he was anxious to reach the camp of the Flying U. A mile from the herder's camp he saw again on a distant hilltop three familiar figures. This time he did not dodge into shelter, but urged Stranger to a gallop and rode boldly toward them. ”

“ Happy Jack backed out as if he had inadvertently stirred a nest of hornets. Jakie almost caught him before he took to his heels. Happy never waited to discover what the new cook was saying, or whether he was following or remaining at the tent. He headed straight for the protection of the horse-wrangler, who watched his cavvy not far away, and his face was the color of stale putty.
The horse-wrangler saw him coming and came loping up to meet him. "What's eating yuh, Happy?" ”

“ Happy Jack, over on the Shonkin range, saw how far it was to the river and mopped the heat-crimsoned face of him with a handkerchief not quite as clean as it might have been. He hoped that the Flying U wagons would be where he had estimated that they would be; for he was aweary of riding with a strange outfit, where his little personal peculiarities failed to meet with that large tolerance accorded by the Happy Family. ”

“ When he is awake, and that is every minute of the daytime, he is the most wide-awake little fellow you ever did see. He had seen Happy Jack the very first thing, and he had guessed right away that Happy Jack was spying on him so as to find out if he had any of the big, fat hickory nuts. Now Striped Chipmunk had all of those fat hickory nuts safely hidden in his splendid new storehouse, but he didn't intend to let Happy Jack know it. ”

“ Up on the high level, with the sun hot against their right cheeks and a lazy breeze flipping neckerchief ends against their smiling lips, the world seemed very good, and a jolly place to live in, and there was no such thing as trouble anywhere. Even Happy Jack was betrayed into expecting much pleasure and no misfortune, and whistled while he rode. ”

“ Jack is strong and clever and industrious, and you have a rich father; humanly speaking, you will never want. Take it with a smile, dear! If you will smile, so will Jack. If you push things to the end, it rests with you, for he won’t fret if he sees you happy. He does love you, Edie! I’m not sentimental, but I think it must be just the most beautiful thing in the world to be loved like that. I should like some one to look at me as he does at you, with his eyes lighting up with that deep, bright glow. I’d live in an attic with my Jack, and ask for nothing more! ”

“ He shifted the sheepskin mantle for the thousandth time; this time he untied it from his galled shoulders and festooned it modestly if unbecomingly about his middle.
Feeling sure of the unfailing hospitality of the rangeland, be the tent-dweller whom he might, Happy Jack walked boldly through the soft, spring twilight that lasts long in Montana, and up to the very door of the tent. A figure—a female figure—slender and topped by thin face and eyes sheltered behind glasses, rose up, gazed upon him in horror, shrieked till one could hear her a mile, and fell backward into the tent. ”

“ His whole countenance lighted up. With a cry of pleasure he seized both my hands, gazing earnestly in my face. “Jack, my dear fellow, Jack!” he exclaimed. “You alive, and here! Happy you may be, but not so happy as I am to see you. I mourned you as lost, for I could not hope that you had escaped a second time.” His surprise was great indeed when I told him I came especially to search for him, and we at once agreed to repair to the “George,” that I might give him the important information I had to afford, and settle, with the aid of Mr Munch, what course it would be advisable for him to pursue. ”

“ How they ever got him to the top of that heartbreaking slope, not one of them ever knew. Twice he fainted outright. And Happy Jack, carefully bearing his hat full of water for just that emergency, slipped and spilled the whole of it just when they needed it most. At the last, it was as if they carried a dead man between them—Jack Bates and Cal Emmett it was who bore him up the last steep climb—and Pink and Weary, coming behind with all the horses, glanced fearfully into each other's eyes and dared not question. ”

“ And because every one liked Happy Jack every one went to the Great Pine on the hill—Reddy Fox, Bobby Coon, Jimmy Skunk Striped Chipmunk, who is Happy Jack's cousin you know, Billy Mink, Little Joe Otter, Jerry Muskrat, Hooty the Owl, who was almost too sleepy to keep his eyes open, Blacky the Crow, Johnny Chuck, Peter Rabbit, even old Grandfather Frog. ”

“ He turned down the head of a coulee which promised to lead him, by the most direct route—if any route in the Badlands can be called direct—to the river, across which, and a few miles up on Suction Creek, he confidently expected to find the Flying U wagons. The coulee wound aimlessly, with precipitous sides that he could not climb, even by leading his horse. Happy Jack, under the sweltering heat of mid-June sunlight, once more mopped his face, now more crimson than ever, and relapsed into his habitual gloom. ”

“ And what do you think Happy Jack did? Why, he just turned tail and ran, Chatterer after him, crying "Thief! Robber! Coward!" at the top of his lungs, so that every one in the Green Forest could hear.
CHAPTER X STRIPED CHIPMUNK'S HAPPY THOUGHT Waste seems to me a dreadful sin;
It works to lose and not to win.
Thrift will win; it cannot lose. ”

“ Jakie wouldn't touch nothing when he was in town," Happy Jack objected. "I betche he's gone crazy, or else—"
"Well," interrupted the horse-wrangler, "I've told yuh what I know and all I know. Take it or leave it." He rode back to turn the lead-horse from climbing a ridge where he did not want the herd to follow. He did not lend Happy Jack his gun, and for that reason—perhaps—Jakie remained alive and unpunctured until the first of the riders came loping in to camp.
The first riders happened to be Pink and Big Medicine. ”

“ He eased the clothing cautiously away from his smarting back, and stared hard into a coulee.
"It was likely some sheepherder gone clean nutty," mused Irish.
"Well, the most uh them wouldn't have far to go," ventured Happy Jack, thinking of the Swede.
"What we ought to do," said Pink, keen for the chase, "is for the whole bunch of us to come down here and round him up. Wonder if we couldn't talk Chip into laying off for a day or so; there's no herd to hold. ”

“ It is never brave to do a thing that you are not afraid to do. It had been brave of him to go in at that open window the first time, because then he had been afraid, but now he wasn't afraid, and so it was no longer either brave or bold of him.
Tommy Tit the Chickadee knew all this, and he used to chuckle to himself as he saw how proud of himself Happy Jack was, but he said nothing to any one about it. Of course, it wasn't long before others began to notice Happy Jack's pride. One of the first was Sammy Jay. There is very little that escapes Sammy Jay's sharp eyes. ”

“ It often happens that way with the little people of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest. It was that way with Happy Jack Squirrel now.
You see, Happy Jack knew that Shadow the Weasel is not one to give up easily. Shadow has one very good trait, and that is persistence. He is not easily discouraged. When he sets out to do a thing, usually he does it. ”

“ Well, of course, Jack and the gay young daughter were married, and were as happy as the day is long; and Jack had fine clothes to wear, fine food to eat, fine servants to wait on him, and as many fine friends as he liked.
So he was in luck; but he had yet to learn that a mother's malison is sure to bring misfortune some time or another.
Thus it happened that one day when he was going a-hunting with all the ladies and gentlemen, Jack forgot to change the golden snuff-box (which he always carried about with him for fear of accidents) from his waistcoat pocket to that of his scarlet hunting-coat ”

“ Send them darn dogs back to watch your sheep, and get busy with breakfast! I've got a lot to do, t'-day. I've got to round up my horse and get my clothes that's tied to the saddle, and get t' where I'm going. Get up, darn yuh! I ain't going t' eat yuh—not unless you're too slow with that grub."
The herder was submissive and placating, and permitted Happy Jack to appropriate the conventional garb of a male human, the while coffee and bacon were maddening his hunger with their tantalizing odor. ”

“ If I had spent half as much time looking for hickory nuts as I did looking for Striped Chipmunk's storehouse, I would be ready for winter now, and Chatterer couldn't call me a thief."
Then he laughed again as he thought how Striped Chipmunk must have enjoyed seeing him pulled out of Chatterer's storehouse by the tail.
"What's the joke?" asked Bobby Coon, who happened along just then.
"I've just learned a lesson," replied Happy Jack.
"What is it?" asked Bobby.
Happy Jack grinned as he answered:
"I've found that greed will never, never pay. ”

“ Jack sat smoking silently for a while. "That was what you were lookin' so happy about, was it?" he asked at last, with a wry smile. "I've never afore seen a man so happy over chuckin' away five hundred a year. Where does the fun come in, Andy?" ”