Jasper Jay, alighting in a small hemlock near Reddy Woodpecker, asked the same question that Solomon Owl had just put to his rude caller.
“What’s the joke?” inquired Jasper Jay.
Reddy could not speak. He was rocking back and forth upon a limb, choking and gasping for breath. But he managed to point to the big tree where Solomon Owl lived.
And when Jasper looked, and saw Solomon’s great, round, pale, questioning face, all tied up in a red nightcap, he began to scream.
They were no ordinary screams—those shrieks of Jasper Jay’s. That blue-coated rascal was the noisiest of all the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley. And now he fairly made the woods echo with his hoarse cries.
“This is the funniest sight I’ve ever seen!” Jasper Jay said at last, to nobody in particular. “I declare, there’s a pair of them!”
At that, Reddy Woodpecker suddenly stopped laughing.
“A pair of what?” he asked.
“A pair of red-heads, of course!” Jasper Jay replied. “You’ve a red cap—and so has he!” Jasper pointed at Solomon Owl (a very rude thing to do!).
Then two things happened all at once. Solomon Owl snatched off his red night-cap—which he had quite forgotten. And Reddy Woodpecker dashed at Jasper Jay. He couldn’t pull off his red cap, for it grew right on his head.