Poor Mrs. Flicker cried herself to sleep that night. “If we had not been careful,” she sobbed, “I wouldn’t feel so badly, but to have it happen after all the trouble we took! I am sure that when we cut the hole for our nest, not a single chip fell to the ground below. We carried them all far away before dropping them.
“Excepting the ones we left for the eggs to lie on,” added Mr. Flicker, who was always particular and exact in what he said, even when in great trouble.
A VERY CRUEL THING TO DO.
“Yes, excepting those,” sobbed his poor wife. “I left a few of the best ones inside.”
“I wonder where the eggs are now,” said Mr. Flicker. He looked toward the Bad Boy’s home as he spoke. If he had but known it, the Bad Boy had not one left. Two had been broken in coming down the tree (for his mouth had not been big enough to carry all six), three he had traded for marbles, and the last one, which he meant to keep for a “specimen,” had rolled off his desk in school and smashed on the floor. The Bad Boy had been kept in at recess for this, but that did not make the egg whole again.
The Flickers went sadly to sleep, and dreamed of a land where Birds were as big as Cows and Boys as small as Goldfinches—where boys were afraid of birds and hid when they saw them coming.
When the morning sunshine awakened them and they had breakfasted well, Mrs. Flicker began to feel more hopeful. “I am really ashamed of myself,” she said, “for being so discouraged. There would be some excuse for it if I were another kind of bird, but since I am a Flicker and can lay more eggs whenever my nest is robbed, I think I’d better stop crying and plan for six more.”
“My brave wife!” exclaimed Mr. Flicker. “You are quite right. It is all very sad, but we will make the best of it and try to be happy.”
The Bad Boy passed under the tree more than twenty times before the second lot of eggs were hatched, and he wished and wished for a Flicker’s egg (only he called them High Holes, because they built in high holes). He never guessed that in the nest above his head lay six more just as fine as the ones he had stolen. It is not strange that he did not, for who but a Flicker can lay and lay and lay eggs when her nest is robbed?