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 time
the faint "tap-tap-tap" of a tiny beak rapping on the inside of an egg
shell. She hopped to one side of her nest and stood looking at the four
white eggs that lay there. Soon the rapping was heard again and she saw
one of them move a bit on its bed of chips.
"So it is that one," she cried. "I thought it would be. I was certain
that I laid that one first." And she arched her neck proudly, as the
beak of her eldest child came through a crack in the shell. Now nobody
else could have told one egg from another, but mothers have a way of
remembering such things, and it may be because they love their children
so that sometimes their sight is a little sharper, and their hearing a
little keener than anybody else's.
However that may be, she stood watching while the tiny bird chipped away
the shell and squeezed out of the opening he had made. She did not even
touch a piece of the shell until he was well out of it, for she knew
that 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-headed
Woodpecker had struggled free, she took the broken pieces in her beak
and 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 the
hollow tree where she lived, any prowling Weasel or Blue Jay might have
seen them and watched for a chance to reach her babies. And that would
have been very sad for the babies.
The newly hatched bird was a tired little fellow, and the first thing he
did was to take a nap. He was cold, too, although the weather was fine
and sunshiny. His down was all wet from the moisture inside the egg, and
you 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 again
have it around him. Even if it had been whole once more, he could not
have been packed into it, for he had been stretching and growing every
minute since he left it. It is for this reason that the barn-yard people
have a wise saying: "A hatched chicken never returns to his shell."
When Mrs. Red-headed Woodpecker came back, she covered her shivering
little one with her downy breast, and there he slept, while she watched
for her husband's coming, and thought how pleased and proud he would be
to see the baby. They were a young couple, and this was their first
child.
But who can tell what the other three children, who had not cracked the
shell, were thinking? Could they remember the time when they began to
be? Could they dream of what would happen after they were hatched? Could
they think at all? They were tiny, weak creatures, curled up within
their shells, with food packed all around them. There had been a time
when they were only streaks in the yellow liquid of the eggs. Now they
were almost ready to leave this for a fuller, freer life, where they
could open their bills and flutter their wings, and stretch their legs
and necks. It had been a quiet, sheltered time in the shell; why should
they leave it? Ah, but they must leave it, for they were healthy and
growing, and when they had done so, they would forget all about it. By
the time they could talk, and that would be very soon, they would have
forgotten all that happened before they were hatched. That is why you
can 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 they
were alone much of the time. It was not long before they knew their
parents' voices, although, once in a while, before they got their eyes
open, they mistook the call of the Tree Frog below for that of the
Woodpeckers. 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 foot
of the tree, the four Woodpecker children, in their nest-hollow far
above his head, would be opening their bills and stretching their necks,
and wondering why no juicy and delicious morsel was dropped down their
throats.
When they had their eyes open there was much to be seen. At least, they
thought so. Was there not the hollow in their dear, dry old tree, a
hollow four or five times as high as they could reach? Their mother had
told 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 at
the top just large enough for them to pass through. Part of the chips
they had taken away, as the mother had taken the broken shells, and part
had been left in the bottom of the hollow for the children to lie on. "I
don't believe in grass, hair, and down, as a bed for children," their
father had said. "Nice soft chips are far better."
And the Woodpecker children liked the chips, and played with them, and
pretended that they were grubs to be caught with their long and bony
tongues; only of course they never swallowed them.
It was an exciting time when their feathers began to grow. Until then
they had been clothed in down; but now the tiny quills came pricking
through their skin, and it was not so pleasant to snuggle up to each
other as it had once been. Now, too, the eldest of the family began to
show a great fault. He was very vain. You can imagine how sorry his
parents 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. His
head, neck, and throat were crimson. To be sure, while the feathers
were growing, the colors were not very bright, for the down was mixed
with them, and the quills showed so plainly that the young birds looked
rather streaked.
The sisters were getting their new suits at the same time, and there was
just as much reason why they should be vain, but they were not. They
were glad (as who would not be?) and they often said to each other: "How
pretty you are growing!" They looked exactly like their brother, for it
is not with the Woodpeckers as with many other birds,--the sons and
daughters are dressed in precisely the same way.
As for the vain young Woodpecker, he had many troubles. He was not
contented 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 great
many times every day. Then, if he thought they were not growing as fast
as they should, he worried about it. He wanted to hurry them along, and
sometimes, when his sisters did not seem to be looking, he took hold of
them with his bill and pulled. Of course this did not make them grow any
faster and it did make his skin very sore, but how was he to know? He
had not been out of the shell long enough to be wise.
It troubled him, too, because he could not see his red feathers. He
twisted his head this way and that, and strained his eyes until they
ached, trying to see his own head and neck. It was very annoying. He
thought it would have been much nicer to have the brightest feathers in
a 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 little
but his own beauty. I am afraid that if he had been allowed to wear his
red feathers in his tail, he would never have seen anything else in
this wonderful great world, but just his own poor little tail." She
looked 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. Then
there were daily lessons in flying, alighting, clinging to branches, and
tapping for food on the bark of trees. They learned, too, how to support
themselves with their stiff tails when they were walking up trees or
stopping to eat with their claws hooked into the bark. Then Mrs.
Red-headed Woodpecker taught them how to tell the ripest and sweetest
fruit on the trees before they tasted it. That is something many people
would like to know, but it is a forest secret, and no bird will tell
anyone who cannot fly.
It was on his way back from an orchard one day, that the vain young
Woodpecker stopped to talk with an old Gray Squirrel. It may be that
the Gray Squirrel's sight was not good, and so he mistook the Woodpecker
for quite another fellow. He was speaking of an old tree where he had
spent the last winter. "I believe a family of Red-headed Woodpeckers
live there now," he said. "I have met them once or twice. The father and
mother are fine people, and they have charming daughters, but their son
must be a great trial to them. He is one of these silly fellows who see
the world through their own feathers."
As the young Red-headed Woodpecker flew away, he repeated this to
himself: "A silly fellow, a silly fellow, who sees the world through his
own feathers." And he said to his father, "Whose feathers must I look
through?"
This puzzled his father. "Whose feathers should you look through?" said
he. "What do you mean?"
"Well," answered the son, "somebody said that I saw the world through my
own 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 any
feathers," said he. "What he meant was that you thought so much of your
own plumage that you did not care for anything else; and it is so. If it
were intended you should look at yourself all the time, your eyes would
have 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 where
they 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 was
determined not to turn his head.
The old Woodpecker's eyes twinkled. "I should think," he said, "that
since you are young and have no family to look after, you might preen
your feathers in the morning and in the afternoon and when you go to
sleep. Then, of course, when it is stormy, you will have to take your
waterproof out of the pocket under your tail, and put it on one feather
at a time, as all birds do. That would be often enough unless something
happened to rumple them."
"I will not look at them any oftener," said the young Red-headed
Woodpecker, firmly. "I will _not_ be called a silly fellow." And he was
as good as his word.
His mother sighed when she heard of the change. "I am very glad," said
she. "But isn't that always the way? His father and I have talked and
talked, and it made no difference; but let somebody else say he is silly
and vain, and behold!"
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