id want to call to them dreadfully. But
that would never, never do, for no one must know that he was sitting up
awake all night.

By and by along came Jimmy Skunk, walking out into the patch of bright
moonlight. He touched noses with Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare, which is
one way of saying "good evening" in the Green Forest.

"Isn't it most time for Sammy Jay to scream in his sleep?" asked Peter
Rabbit.

Sammy pricked up his ears. "Scream in his sleep! Nonsense! Sammy Jay isn't
any more asleep than I am. He just screams out of pure meanness to wake up
and frighten good honest folks who want to sleep. For my part, I don't see
what any one wants to sleep for on such a fine night as this, anyway. It
serves 'em right if they do get waked up," replied Jimmy Skunk.

"But Sammy Jay says that he doesn't do it and doesn't know anything about
it," said Peter Rabbit. "Have you ever seen him scream in the night, Jimmy
Skunk?"

"No, I don't have to," replied Jimmy Skunk. "I guess I know his voice when
I hear it, and I've heard it enough times the last few nights, goodness
knows! Tell me this, Peter Rabbit: who else is there that cries 'Thief!
thief! thief!' and screams like Sammy Jay?"

Peter shook his head. "I guess you're right, Jimmy Skunk. I guess you're
right," he said.

"Of course I'm right. There, now!" Jimmy held up one hand to warn Peter to
keep still. Sure enough, there was Sammy Jay's voice, way over in the
alders beside the Laughing Brook, and it was screaming "Thief! thief!
thief!"

They all heard it. Sammy Jay heard it, too, and scratched himself to be
sure that he was awake and sitting there in the big pine-tree.

"It's my voice, and it isn't my voice, for I haven't made a sound, and it's
over in the alders while I'm here in my own big pine-tree," muttered Sammy
Jay to himself. "I'm glad I kept awake, but--

"Maybe I'm going crazy!
My wits are getting hazy!
That's surely me,
Yet here I be!
Oh, dear, I sure am crazy!"

IX

THE MYSTERY GROWS

"Can a body be a body,
Yet not a body be?
Tell a body, anybody,
Didst such a body see?"

Of course it was Sammy Jay who was humming such a foolish-sounding rhyme
as that. But really, it wasn't so foolish in Sammy's case, after all. He
had sat up wide awake all night just to try to find out why it was that all
the little meadow and forest people had complained that he spent part of
each night screaming "Thief! thief! thief