s how easy it is to misunderstand people when we don't know all
about their affairs. Mrs. Brown thought that Happy Jack was scolding,
when all the time he was just frightened and worried and wondering where
he could go and what he could do to feel safe from Shadow the Weasel.

Because he didn't dare to go back to the Green Forest, he spent most of
the day in the big maple tree close to Farmer Brown's house. The window
had been closed, so he couldn't go inside. He looked at it longingly a
great many times during the day, hoping that he would find it open. But
he didn't. You see, it was opened only at night when Farmer Brown's boy
went to bed, so that he would have plenty of fresh air all night. Of
course Happy Jack didn't know that. All his life he had had plenty of
fresh air all the time, and be couldn't understand how people could live
in houses all shut up.

Late that afternoon Farmer Brown's boy, who had been at school all day,
came whistling into the yard. He noticed Happy Jack right away. "Hello!
You back again! Isn't one good meal a day enough?" he exclaimed.

"He's been there all day," said his mother, who had come to the door
just in time to overhear him. "I don't know what ails him."

Then Farmer Brown's boy noticed how forlorn Happy Jack looked. He
remembered Happy Jack's fright that morning.

"I know what's the matter!" he cried. "It's that Weasel. The poor little
chap is afraid to go home. We must see what we can do for him. I wonder
if he will stay if I make a new house for him. I believe I'll try it and
see."

CHAPTER XXVIII

HAPPY JACK FINDS A NEW HOME

They say the very darkest clouds
Are lined with silver bright and fair,
Though how they know I do not see,
And neither do I really care.
It's good to believe, and so I try
To believe 'tis true with all my might,
That nothing is so seeming dark
But has a hidden side that's bright.

_Happy Jack._

Certainly things couldn't look much darker than they did to Happy Jack
Squirrel as he sat in the big maple tree at the side of Farmer Brown's
house, and saw jolly, round, red Mr. Sun getting ready to go to bed
behind the Purple Hills. He was afraid to go to his home in the Green
Forest because Shadow the Weasel might be waiting for him there. He was
afraid of the night which would soon come. He was cold, and he was
hungry. Altogether he was as miserable a little Squirrel as ever was
seen.

He had