Hooty the Owl. But they didn't
seem to think of this, and insisted that almost every night they heard him
down in the alders along the Laughing Brook. Yet every morning when he
awoke, Sammy would find himself just where he went to sleep the night
before, safely hidden in the thickest part of a big pine-tree.

"If they are not all crazy, then I must be," said. Sammy Jay to himself, as
he turned away from the breakfast which he could not eat. Then he had a
happy idea. "Why didn't I think of it before? I'll sleep all day, and then
I'll keep awake all night and see what happens then!" he exclaimed.

So Sammy Jay hurried away to the darkest part of the Green Forest and tried
to sleep through the day.

VII

SAMMY JAY SITS UP ALL NIGHT

Sammy Jay sat in the dark and shivered. Sammy was lonely, more lonely than
he had ever supposed anybody could be. And to tell the truth Sammy Jay was
scared. Yes, Sir, that was just the way Sammy Jay felt--scared. Every time
a leaf rustled, Sammy jumped almost out of his skin. His heart went
pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat. He could hear it himself, or at least he
thought he could, and it seemed to him that if Hooty the Owl should happen
to come along, he would surely hear it.

You see it was the first time in all his life that Sammy Jay had not gone
to sleep just as soon as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had pulled his rosy
night-cap on and gone to bed behind the Purple Hills. But to-night Sammy
sat in the darkest, thickest part of a big pine-tree and kept blinking his
eyes to keep from going to sleep. He had made up his mind that he wouldn't
go to sleep at all that night, no matter how lonely and frightened he might
be. He just would keep his eyes and his ears wide open.

What was he doing it for? Why, because all the little meadow and forest
people insisted that every night lately Sammy Jay had spent a great part of
his time screaming in the harsh, unpleasant way he does during the day, and
some of them were very cross, because they said that he waked them up when
they wanted to sleep. Now Sammy knew better. He never in his life had
screamed in the night unless--well, unless he did it in his sleep and
didn't know it. So he had made up his mind to keep awake all of this night
and see if in the morning any one would say that he had waked them up.

He had watched the black shadows creep through the Green Forest and grow
blacker and blacker. The blacker they grew, the lonesomer he beca