There was once a woman who was so very inquisitive that she wished to
know everything. She was never happy unless she was poking her nose into
some mystery, and the less a matter concerned her the more curious she
was about it.
One day the Lord gathered together all the insects in the world, all the
beetles, bugs, bees, mosquitoes, ants, locusts, grasshoppers, and other
creatures who fly or hop or crawl, and shut them up in a huge sack well
tied at the end. What a queer, squirming, muffled-buzzing bundle it
made, to be sure!
Then the Lord called the woman to him and said, "Woman, I would have you
take this sack and throw it into the sea. But be sure and do not untie
the end of it to look inside; for the sack must on no account be opened,
even for a single minute."
The woman took the sack, wondering very much at the queer size and shape
and feeling of it, and especially at the strange noises which came from
the inside.
"What can be in the sack?" she said to herself. "Oh, I wish I knew! Oh,
_how_ I wish I knew! Oh, how very, _very_ much I wish I knew!" Her
curiosity increased every minute as she went step by step towards the
sea, until when she had gone scarcely a hundred paces she stopped short
and said, "I must know what is inside this sack before I go any farther.
I will take just one tiny little peep, and He will never know it."
Very carefully she untied the neck of the sack. Buzz! Whirr! Hum! Zim!
She had opened it but a tiny little crack when out crawled and hopped
and flew the millions and swarms and colonies of all kinds of insects,
and away they scattered in every direction. Such a noise as filled the
air about the astonished woman's head! Such a wriggling and squirming
and hopping in the grass about her feet!
"Oh, now I know what was in the sack!" she cried. "But I wish I had not
looked. Oh, whatever shall I do? He told me to throw the bag into the
ocean without looking in. But now the horrid creatures have escaped
everywhere and He will know what I have done. Oh, what will He do to
punish me?"
She began to run hither and yon like a crazy woman, picking up the bugs
and jumping for the fluttering insects, trying to put them back into the
bag. They stung her and bit her and got into her eyes until she screamed
with pain. As fast as she caught one another escaped, and she soon saw
that it was a hopeless task. She could never catch the millions of
creatures who had scattered away to their homes in every corner of the
world.
Then the Lord came to her and said very sternly, "O Woman, you have
disobeyed me, just as did the very first woman of all. And you must be
punished both for your disobedience and for your inquisitiveness which
has led you into the worse sin. Not until you have gathered up every one
of these insects which you have permitted to escape back into the world
shall you be happy. But I will give you wings to help you in the task.
You shall become a Woodpecker, and it shall be your task to hunt, hunt
for the insects which hide away so slyly at your approach. Not till the
last one of these is gobbled up from the earth shall you return to your
own shape and be a woman once more."
Then the Lord changed the inquisitive woman into a restless Woodpecker,
and with a "tut-tut!" she darted away in pursuit of the insects which
had brought her into such trouble.
And that is why to this day one sees the Woodpecker pecking so
frantically on the tree trunks, anxious lest a single insect should
escape. For she is very tired of being a bird, and is longing to become
a woman once more. But it will be a very long time, I fear, before she
gathers up all the wriggling, squirming, hopping, buzzing, stinging,
biting things that make life in the country so varied, exciting, and
musical.