“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Woodpecker, turning his head to one side and looking down at the squirrel. “I am not destroying property. I am digging into the bark to find insects. Mr. Graysquirrel, your landlord, told me that I might have all I could find. He said it was they who greatly annoy his tenants. Pardon me for disturbing your mother.”
“GO AWAY AND DO NOT COME BACK AGAIN,” COMMANDED TINY.
“Go away! and do not come back again,” commanded Tiny, vexed at the bird’s display of good humor. “Hush, Tiny!” called Mrs. Redsquirrel, thrusting her dainty nose through the window. “I am glad that Mr. Woodpecker is so kind as to destroy those horrid insects. I thought at first that he was tapping the tree because he wished to trouble me. We animals are always ready to imagine disagreeable things.”
Tiny came back into the house and to cover his chagrin began to get the storeroom in order.
His mother gathered up the nut-shell cups and placed them in a hollow gourd. As they worked she talked. “Mr. Woodpecker is a clever creature,” she said. “I never before saw a bird that could use his bill with such ease and swiftness.”
Tiny did not reply. He was thinking very hard, and the idea that he was going to support his mother made him feel very important.
“Woodpeckers do a great deal of good by destroying grubs and insects,” his mother went on. “I have heard that in a far-away land there lives one kind that feeds chiefly on acorns, and stores them away for the winter as squirrels do. They make small holes in the soft bark of dead trees and place the acorns in these holes by pounding them with their bills.”
“Now I am ready to start,” interrupted Tiny. “Perhaps I can get Chatty Chipmunk to go with me.”
“If you do, don’t let him lead you into bad company!” warned Mrs. Redsquirrel. “He is very mischievous. He causes his parents much trouble.”