| "Ho-ho, ho-hee, Just look at me!" |
he piped, and cocked his little eyes about in every direction, to see who might be admiring his wondrous whiteness.
But all on a sudden his song gurgled down into his throat and choked itself still, and his eyes fixed themselves upon a tree close by. It was a dead old tree, and there was a hole in the trunk halfway up to the lowest limb, a round little hole about as big as your two fists.
Whitebird had seen something black pop into that hole in a sly and secret way, and he began to wonder; for he was inquisitive, as most birds are. He sat quite still on his rose-bush and watched and watched. Presently out of the hole popped a black head, bigger than Whitebird's, with two wise little twinkling eyes.
"Oho!" said Whitebird to himself, "it is Mother Magpie up to her old tricks, hiding, hiding. Maybe she has a treasure hidden there. I will watch, and perhaps I shall find out something worth knowing."
Mother Magpie was the wisest and the slyest of all the birds, and it was always worth while, as Whitebird knew, to take lessons of her. So he sat perfectly still until she came cautiously back carrying something in her beak. It was round and white and glinted like moonlight. Whitebird's eyes stuck out greedily.
"It is a piece of silver!" he thought, but he sat perfectly still until the Magpie had stowed the coin safely in the hollow tree and had hopped away as if upon an unfinished errand. "Aha! there is more then. I will watch to see what comes next," said Whitebird. And he waited.
Sure enough. In a little while the Magpie returned, this time bringing something which glowed yellow like sunlight.
"It is a piece of gold!" gasped Whitebird, and his eyes bulged out like those of lobsters, he was so jealous of her luck. But he silently watched her disappear into her tree-cupboard and then hastily depart as before toward the mountain. "What comes next?" muttered Whitebird to himself. "I am dying to peep into that hole. I cannot wait much longer."
Then, after a while, a third time came back the Magpie to the dead tree. And lo, what she carried in her beak twinkled and trembled and shone in many colors, like a drop of dew on a velvet flower-cheek. When Whitebird saw this sight, he nearly tumbled off his perch with excitement.