But if Mrs. Robin was anxious about her eggs her worry was nothing compared with what it became when the nestlings broke through their shells.
"This is the finest family in the whole valley," she confided to her husband. "I know that terrible Woodpecker person will steal these children if he can."
If the youngsters didn't peep for food their mother feared they were ill. If they did peep she feared Reddy Woodpecker would hear them. "He's such a dangerous person!" she would exclaim. "I wonder if he ever eats anything except eggs and nestlings."
"Yes, indeed!" Jolly assured her again and again. "He eats grubs, which he finds on the trees. And he eats insects, which he catches in the air."
"Thank goodness!" Mrs. Robin murmured. But her relief was short-lived. For she happened to meet little Mrs. Chippy one day and learned another bit of distressing news about Reddy Woodpecker. "He's a fruit eater!" Mrs. Robin told Jolly. "And you know we've been depending on the raspberries for our children."
A few days later she came home in a dreadful state of mind.
"I went to take a look at the raspberry patch," she explained to her good husband. "I knew the berries would soon be ripe. In fact I've had my eye on one that was almost ready to be picked. And what do you think? Eight before my own eyes that ruffianly Reddy Woodpecker picked it and ate it himself!"
"Don't worry about that!" said Jolly Robin.
But Mrs. Robin insisted on worrying; nothing he said could stop her.
"Reddy Woodpecker is taking the food out of our children's mouths!" she wailed. "You'll have to drive him away from the raspberry patch! You'll have to fight him!"