*XIII*
*THE CARPENTER*
One day Reddy Woodpecker was _tap, tap, tapping_ on a tall poplar that
grew beside the brook. He had discovered a tiny opening in the bark and
he wanted to see what was at the further end of it.
Suddenly a voice called out, "Well, well, well! What is it?" And a
pale-faced person not unlike Buster Bumblebee peered out at Reddy
Woodpecker. He was careful to keep safely out of reach of Reddy's horny
tongue. "I hope," said the dweller in the poplar, "you're not wanting
me to build you a house. I can't work for you just now. I'm very busy
to-day, making an addition to my own house."
Reddy stared at the speaker.
"I've already built my house--with my wife's help," he replied. "Why
should you think I needed your assistance?"
"Because," said the other, "I'm Whiteface, the Carpenter Bee. The
neighbors are always pestering me to help them."
Then Reddy Woodpecker noticed that Whiteface was covered with sawdust.
But before he could examine him very closely the carpenter vanished.
"I must have another look at that queer person," Reddy thought. So he
began to rap once more.
Again the carpenter peeped forth.
"If you're out of work," he said, "I'll tell you plainly that you can't
find it here. I never employ strangers to work for me, for I'm _very_
particular." Then he was gone.
_Tap, tap, tap_! This time, when the carpenter answered Reddy's
knocking, he was most impatient.
"Go away!" he cried. "You're shaking my whole house. I don't like it."
"Not so fast!" said Reddy Woodpecker. "I'm only making a friendly call.
You and I are neighbors. But how am I ever going to get acquainted with
you if you won't stop for a short chat?"
"I can't stand here idling my time away," the carpenter replied. "I'm a
busy bee. Come inside if you want to see me!" And he disappeared
again.
How could Reddy Woodpecker accept his invitation to enter? The
carpenter's doorway was too small for him. And the wood was not the
sort that Reddy liked to chisel away with his bill. It wasn't brittle
enough to suit him. So he knocked again.
When the carpenter came rushing back to his doorway his pale face wore
an anxious look.
"Oh!" he said. "I thought it was a fire. I thought somebody wanted to
tell me my house was on fire. But it's only you. What do you want
now?"
"I know you'd like to learn my name," Reddy Woodpecker began.
"Just leave your card!" the carpenter told him. "I'll look at it later
when I have more time."
"When will that be?" Reddy demanded.
"I don't know," the odd person confessed. "It seems as if I never would
get my house finished."
"Then," said Reddy, "there can't be any use in my leaving my card.
Probably when you found time to look at it you wouldn't remember who
left it."
"Probably not!" the carpenter admitted. "Good day, sir!" And he dodged
out of sight.
Still Reddy Woodpecker was not discouraged. He knocked a fifth time.
"What!" exclaimed the carpenter when he answered Reddy's tapping.
"Haven't you gone yet?"
"No!" Reddy replied. "I want to say----"
"If you have anything more to tell me, write me a letter!" said the
pale-faced carpenter. And he set up a sign where Reddy Woodpecker could
see it: "This Is My Busy Day!" Then he passed from view.
Reddy Woodpecker stayed a long time at the poplar tree beside the brook.
He knocked and knocked and knocked until at last his head began to ache.
But the sawdust-covered carpenter never showed his pale face again.
*XIV*
*MR. CROW'S QUESTIONS*
If people snubbed Reddy Woodpecker he never cared. When the members of
the Pleasant Valley Singing Society wouldn't let him join them he only
smiled and said he intended to form a club of his own.
As soon as the bird neighbors heard of Reddy's plan they were all very
curious to know more about it. But whenever anybody asked him questions
he had little to say.
"You'll learn all about it later," he told them. "Please don't bother
me now, for I'm a busy bird. I'm starting my club."
It was easy for Reddy Woodpecker to keep his secrets from such small
feathered folk as little Mr. Chippy. But there was one that couldn't
rest until he found out what he wanted to know. This was old Mr. Crow.
He shot question after question at Reddy Woodpecker. At last Reddy just
had to tell him something in order to gain a little peace. Reddy knew
that Mr. Crow would leave him as soon as he had picked up a bit of news.
The old gentleman would hurry away to tell it to everybody in the
valley.
"What's your club going to be named?" Whenever Mr. Crow talked with
Reddy Woodpecker that was his favorite question. He asked it so many
times and so loudly that just to get rid of him Reddy finally told him.
"I'm going to call my club 'The Redcaps,'" he said.
Old Mr. Crow didn't tarry an instant longer. With an eager look in his
snapping black eyes he went flapping off on his broad wings, far down
the valley.
Now, Mr. Crow was a fast worker. In an hour's time he had zigzagged
back again, having spread his bit of news far and wide.
And when he had repeated it to the last neighbor he could find he
hurried to the orchard to ask Reddy Woodpecker more questions.
The moment he found Reddy Mr. Crow began to put one question after
another so fast that you couldn't have told where one ended and the next
one began.
Reddy Woodpecker pretended to be busier than ever.
"I can't stop now," he told Mr. Crow. "You'll have to see my secretary."
"Where is he? Who is he?" Mr. Crow inquired hoarsely.
"I can't answer those questions," Reddy replied.
"Why not?" demanded Mr. Crow.
"Because I haven't a secretary yet," Reddy explained.
"Why should you have a secretary?" Mr. Crow asked him.
"Why shouldn't I?" Reddy retorted. "I guess, Mr. Crow, you don't know
much about clubs. I guess you don't know that the president of a club
always has a secretary."
"Are you president of the Redcaps?" Mr. Crow cried breathlessly.
"Well--yes, I am!" Reddy admitted. "I didn't mean to tell you that
to-day. But I can't deny it."
Mr. Crow was off like a shot. You'd have thought he had just spied
Farmer Green with a gun in his hands. His _caw, caw, caw_ told
everybody in Pleasant Valley that he was going somewhere on important
business.
Reddy Woodpecker pulled a fat grub from its hiding place in the old
apple tree. He could still hear Mr. Crow squawking when the old
gentleman was half a mile away. And Reddy smiled as he swallowed the
grub.
"That's better than putting the news in a newspaper," he said with a
chuckle.
*XV*
*THE REDCAPS*
Reddy Woodpecker knew that Mr. Crow would come back to the orchard to
ask him another question. The old gentleman simply had to learn more
about Reddy's club.
"I'd like to knew--" said Mr. Crow--"I'd like to know why you are the
president of The Redcaps."
"That's easily answered," Reddy replied. "It's because I wear the
biggest and reddest cap of all the birds in the neighborhood."
Mr. Crow puzzled over the matter for a time.
"I don't understand what difference your cap makes," he said at last.
"I've been thinking about joining the club. And _I_ have no red cap."
"That's true, Mr. Crow," Reddy agreed. "And that's the reason why you
can't join my club. Nobody that doesn't wear a red cap can be a member
of The Redcaps."
Mr. Crow looked daggers at him.
"Humph!" cried the old gentleman. "I've been thinking about joining the
club. But I've decided not to do it."
Reddy Woodpecker smiled at him. And for some reason Mr. Crow became
angry.
"How many members has your club?" he squawked.
"One!" Reddy told him.
"Ha!" the old fellow exclaimed. "You can't have a club with only one
member."
"I expect that several of the neighbors will join The Redcaps
to-morrow," said Reddy Woodpecker. "They 're only waiting for an
invitation."
"Let me see," Mr. Crow murmured. "There's your cousin Mr. Flicker. He
wears a red patch on the back of his head. But you can't call it a cap."
"_I_ call it a cap," Reddy Woodpecker told him. "Mr. Flicker is going
to get an invitation."
Mr. Crow then muttered something about _cousins_, and added something
more about _birds of a feather flocking together_. And then he said,
"There's the Downy Woodpecker and there's the Hairy Woodpecker--both
cousins of yours, too. They've only what you might call a _touch_ of red
on the backs of their necks; but I suppose----"
"Yes! I'm going to invite them to join The Redcaps," Reddy interrupted.
Mr. Crow looked terribly upset, though he claimed it was no more than he
had expected. "That will be about all the members you will get," he
added.
"Oh, no!" Reddy exclaimed. "You forget Mr. Sapsucker. He has a scarlet
crown. I'll want him."
Mr. Crow swallowed hard a few times but said nothing.
"Then there's the Ruby-crowned Kinglet," Reddy went on. "He's going to
have an invitation. And so is Mr. Kingbird."
"Not Mr. Kingbird!" spluttered old Mr. Crow. "His crown is
orange-colored."
"It's red enough for me," Reddy retorted. "And of course I'll ask little
Mr. Chippy to join us."
"Nonsense!" cried Mr. Crow. "His cap is only chestnut-colored."
"It's red enough for me," Reddy Woodpecker repeated in a firm voice.
"My goodness!" Mr. Crow squalled. "I suppose you'll ask the whole Wood
Thrush family too--and their cousin Mr. Veery. Their heads are
reddish."
"No! They're too brown for me," Reddy Woodpecker decided, to Mr. Crow's
great relief.
"What about Buddy Brown Thrasher?" Mr. Crow inquired. "What about his
head?"
"Too brown!"
"Well," said old Mr. Crow, "I'm glad to see you have a _little_ sense.
But on the whole these Redcaps are going to be a queer lot."
*XVI*
*A SLY TRICK*
This was the truth of the matter: Old Mr. Crow was jealous because he
couldn't join Reddy Woodpecker's new club, The Redcaps. For days the
old gentleman could speak of nothing else. He went grumbling and
sneering up and down Pleasant Valley, stopping to talk with anybody he
happened to see. It must be confessed that the neighbors found his ill
humor very tiresome.
Meanwhile Reddy Woodpecker's club grew in numbers daily. It made Mr.
Crow snort when anybody told him that The Redcaps had another new
member.
Then all at once Mr. Crow's manner changed. He became quite sprightly
and even winked an eye and cracked a joke now and then. His neighbors
wondered what had happened to him.
They soon found out. For Mr. Crow announced that he had discovered a
new member for Reddy Woodpecker's club. Strange to say, the old
gentleman seemed to take great pride in helping The Redcaps.
"I'm going to take my find to the meeting of the club this afternoon,"
Mr. Crow told everybody.
"But you're not a member. You can't go to a meeting," his friends
objected.
"Can't I?" said Mr. Crow wisely. "The air is free. I can go anywhere I
please."
So that afternoon Mr. Crow flew down to the lower end of the meadow,
where The Redcaps were gathering. He took a friend with him, whom he
left hidden in some reeds at the edge of the swamp.
To Reddy Woodpecker Mr. Crow said, "You'd like another member, I dare
say."
"Certainly!" Reddy replied. "The more the merrier--provided they wear
red caps."
"I think," said Mr. Crow, "when you see the gentleman I have in mind
you'll say he has a red cap."
"Bring him up!" Reddy Woodpecker ordered.
"I can't. He's shy," Mr. Crow explained. "But if you'll come with me
you can take a look at him."
So Reddy Woodpecker followed Mr. Crow down to the place where the reeds
grew, near the swamp. And there Mr. Crow pointed out a gentleman who
did indeed appear to be wearing a red cap.
"Good!" exclaimed Reddy Woodpecker. And to the stranger he called, "I
don't know you. But I invite you, sir, to join The Redcaps."