Among the Forest People Read online

  THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER CHILDREN

  Mrs. Red-headed Woodpecker bent her handsome head down and listened."Yes, it is! It certainly is!" she cried, as she heard for a second timethe faint "tap-tap-tap" of a tiny beak rapping on the inside of an eggshell. She hopped to one side of her nest and stood looking at the fourwhite eggs that lay there. Soon the rapping was heard again and she sawone of them move a bit on its bed of chips.

  "So it is that one," she cried. "I thought it would be. I was certainthat I laid that one first." And she arched her neck proudly, as thebeak of her eldest child came through a crack in the shell. Now nobodyelse could have told one egg from another, but mothers have a way ofremembering such things, and it may be because they love their childrenso that sometimes their sight is a little sharper, and their hearing alittle keener than anybody else's.

  However that may be, she stood watching while the tiny bird chipped awaythe shell and squeezed out of the opening he had made. She did not eventouch a piece of the shell until he was well out of it, for she knewthat it is always better for children to help themselves when they can.It makes them strong and fits them for life. When the little Red-headedWoodpecker had struggled free, she took the broken pieces in her beakand carried them far from the nest before dropping them to the ground.If she had done the easiest thing and let them fall by the foot of thehollow tree where she lived, any prowling Weasel or Blue Jay might haveseen them and watched for a chance to reach her babies. And that wouldhave been very sad for the babies.

  The newly hatched bird was a tired little fellow, and the first thing hedid was to take a nap. He was cold, too, although the weather was fineand sunshiny. His down was all wet from the moisture inside the egg, andyou can imagine how he felt, after growing for so long inside a warm,snug shell, to suddenly be without it and know that he could never againhave it around him. Even if it had been whole once more, he could nothave been packed into it, for he had been stretching and growing everyminute since he left it. It is for this reason that the barn-yard peoplehave a wise saying: "A hatched chicken never returns to his shell."

  When Mrs. Red-headed Woodpecker came back, she covered her shiveringlittle one with her downy breast, and there he slept, while she watchedfor her husband's coming, and thought how pleased and proud he would beto see the baby. They were a young couple, and this was their firstchild.

  But who can tell what the other three children, who had not cracked theshell, were thinking? Could they remember the time when they began tobe? Could they dream of what would happen after they were hatched? Couldthey think at all? They were tiny, weak creatures, curled up withintheir shells, with food packed all around them. There had been a timewhen they were only streaks in the yellow liquid of the eggs. Now theywere almost ready to leave this for a fuller, freer life, where theycould open their bills and flutter their wings, and stretch their legsand necks. It had been a quiet, sheltered time in the shell; why shouldthey leave it? Ah, but they must leave it, for they were healthy andgrowing, and when they had done so, they would forget all about it. Bythe time they could talk, and that would be very soon, they would haveforgotten all that happened before they were hatched. That is why youcan never get a bird to tell you what he thought about while in the egg.

  After the young Woodpecker's three sisters reached the outside world,the father and mother were kept busy hunting food for them, and theywere alone much of the time. It was not long before they knew theirparents' voices, although, once in a while, before they got their eyesopen, they mistook the call of the Tree Frog below for that of theWoodpeckers. And this was not strange, for each says, "Ker-r-ruck!Ker-r-ruck!" and when the Tree Frog was singing in his home at the footof the tree, the four Woodpecker children, in their nest-hollow farabove his head, would be opening their bills and stretching their necks,and wondering why no juicy and delicious morsel was dropped down theirthroats.

  When they had their eyes open there was much to be seen. At least, theythought so. Was there not the hollow in their dear, dry old tree, ahollow four or five times as high as they could reach? Their mother hadtold them how their father and she had dug it out with their sharp,strong bills, making it roomy at the bottom, and leaving a doorway atthe top just large enough for them to pass through. Part of the chipsthey had taken away, as the mother had taken the broken shells, and parthad been left in the bottom of the hollow for the children to lie on. "Idon't believe in grass, hair, and down, as a bed for children," theirfather had said. "Nice soft chips are far better."

  And the Woodpecker children liked the chips, and played with them, andpretended that they were grubs to be caught with their long and bonytongues; only of course they never swallowed them.

  It was an exciting time when their feathers began to grow. Until thenthey had been clothed in down; but now the tiny quills came prickingthrough their skin, and it was not so pleasant to snuggle up to eachother as it had once been. Now, too, the eldest of the family began toshow a great fault. He was very vain. You can imagine how sorry hisparents were.

  Every morning when he awakened he looked first of all at his feathers.Those on his breast were white, and he had a white band on his wings.His tail and back and nearly the whole of his wings were blue-black. Hishead, neck, and throat were crimson. To be sure, while the featherswere growing, the colors were not very bright, for the down was mixedwith them, and the quills showed so plainly that the young birds lookedrather streaked.

  The sisters were getting their new suits at the same time, and there wasjust as much reason why they should be vain, but they were not. Theywere glad (as who would not be?) and they often said to each other: "Howpretty you are growing!" They looked exactly like their brother, for itis not with the Woodpeckers as with many other birds,--the sons anddaughters are dressed in precisely the same way.

  As for the vain young Woodpecker, he had many troubles. He was notcontented to let his feathers grow as the grass and the leaves grow,without watching. No indeed! He looked at each one every day and a greatmany times every day. Then, if he thought they were not growing as fastas they should, he worried about it. He wanted to hurry them along, andsometimes, when his sisters did not seem to be looking, he took hold ofthem with his bill and pulled. Of course this did not make them grow anyfaster and it did make his skin very sore, but how was he to know? Hehad not been out of the shell long enough to be wise.

  It troubled him, too, because he could not see his red feathers. Hetwisted his head this way and that, and strained his eyes until theyached, trying to see his own head and neck. It was very annoying. Hethought it would have been much nicer to have the brightest feathers ina fellow's tail, where he could see them, or at any rate on his breast;and he asked his mother why it couldn't be so.

  "I once knew a young Woodpecker," she said, "who thought of very littlebut his own beauty. I am afraid that if he had been allowed to wear hisred feathers in his tail, he would never have seen anything else inthis wonderful great world, but just his own poor little tail." Shelooked out of the doorway as she spoke, but he knew that she meant him.

  Things went on in this way until the children were ready to fly. Thenthere were daily lessons in flying, alighting, clinging to branches, andtapping for food on the bark of trees. They learned, too, how to supportthemselves with their stiff tails when they were walking up trees orstopping to eat with their claws hooked into the bark. Then Mrs.Red-headed Woodpecker taught them how to tell the ripest and sweetestfruit on the trees before they tasted it. That is something many peoplewould like to know, but it is a forest secret, and no bird will tellanyone who cannot fly.

  It was on his way back from an orchard one day, that the vain youngWoodpecker stopped to talk with an old Gray Squirrel. It may be thatthe Gray Squirrel's sight was not good, and so he mistook the Woodpeckerfor quite another fellow. He was speaking of an old tree where he hadspent the last winter. "I believe a family of Red-headed Woodpeckerslive there now," he said. "I have met them once or twice. The father andmother are fine people, and they have charmi
ng daughters, but their sonmust be a great trial to them. He is one of these silly fellows who seethe world through their own feathers."

  As the young Red-headed Woodpecker flew away, he repeated this tohimself: "A silly fellow, a silly fellow, who sees the world through hisown feathers." And he said to his father, "Whose feathers must I lookthrough?"

  This puzzled his father. "Whose feathers should you look through?" saidhe. "What do you mean?"

  "Well," answered the son, "somebody said that I saw the world through myown feathers, and I don't see how I can get anybody else's."

  How his father did laugh! "I don't see why you should look through anyfeathers," said he. "What he meant was that you thought so much of yourown plumage that you did not care for anything else; and it is so. If itwere intended you should look at yourself all the time, your eyes wouldhave been one under your chin and the other in the back of your head.No! They are placed right for you to look at other people, and are wherethey help you hunt for food."

  "How often may I look at my own feathers?" asked the young Woodpecker.He was wondering at that minute how his tail looked, but he wasdetermined not to turn his head.

  The old Woodpecker's eyes twinkled. "I should think," he said, "thatsince you are young and have no family to look after, you might preenyour feathers in the morning and in the afternoon and when you go tosleep. Then, of course, when it is stormy, you will have to take yourwaterproof out of the pocket under your tail, and put it on one featherat a time, as all birds do. That would be often enough unless somethinghappened to rumple them."

  "I will not look at them any oftener," said the young Red-headedWoodpecker, firmly. "I will _not_ be called a silly fellow." And he wasas good as his word.

  His mother sighed when she heard of the change. "I am very glad," saidshe. "But isn't that always the way? His father and I have talked andtalked, and it made no difference; but let somebody else say he is sillyand vain, and behold!"