_In which we see how a well-known bird got its color and habits._
Once there lived an old woman on the edge of a wood far away from
anybody. She lived in a little cabin and did all her own work.
Nobody ever came to see her because she was cross and mean and
selfish, and nobody ever cares to visit a person like that.
She always wore a black dress, a white apron with bows, and a queer
little red bonnet on her head. How selfish she was! She could not
keep a dog, nor a cat, nor even a bird because she would not feed
them. She raised no flowers because she would not spare the water
to keep them alive.
One day she was baking some cakes and a poor hungry man came to the
door and begged for one. “Please give me one of those cakes you
are baking,” said he. “I am very poor and hungry and am weak from
tramping so far.” And then the man sat down on the door step while
the old woman thought it over.
The old woman broke off a piece of dough and put it into the oven
to bake. After it was baked she decided it looked so nice and brown
that it was too large to give away. She then broke off a very small
piece of dough and put it in the oven to bake. After it was baked
it was as nice and large as the other one. At last she broke off a
piece as small as a pinhead. After it was baked it was as large and
nice as the others.
She looked at the old man and said: “These cakes are too nice to
give away,” and then she put the cakes away in the cupboard.
Then she offered the man a piece of bread. The poor man took the
crust of bread and disappeared. The woman then felt sorry she had
given away even so small a piece of bread and wanted it back again.
She said: “I wish I were a bird so I could fly to this man and get
my crust of bread back.”
All at once she felt herself growing smaller and smaller. Then she
shrank to the size of a bird. She still had on the black dress and
the red bonnet. She flew after the man and cried out, “Crust!
Crust! My Crust!” But the man could not be found. She looked in the
woods, she looked in the chimneys, and she decided he had hidden in
a tree. So she began to Tap! Tap! Tap! at every tree she lit on.
She was now no longer a woman but a bird. Her black dress became
the body of the bird, her white apron became the white wings, and
the red bonnet became the red head of the bird. She is called the
red-headed woodpecker.
All day long she knocks at trees. Her head is so hard that it never
hurts, no matter how hard she knocks. She is still trying to find
her crust of bread. All we know is that when she finds a worm she
eats it on the spot and never leaves even a bite for the other
birds.