Doubtless the woodpecker had a nest near by, and had had some experience with this squirrel as a nest-robber. When I first saw them, the bird was chasing the squirrel around the trunk of an oak-tree, his bright colors of black and white and red making his every movement conspicuous. The squirrel avoided him by darting quickly to the other side of the tree.
Then the woodpecker took up his stand on the trunk of a tree a few yards distant, and every time the squirrel ventured timidly around where he could be seen the woodpecker would swoop down at him, making another loop of bright color. The squirrel seemed to enjoy the fun and to tempt the bird to make this ineffectual swoop. Time and again he would poke his head round the tree and draw the fire of his red-headed enemy. Occasionally the bird made it pretty hot for him, and pressed him closely, but he could escape because he had the inside ring, and was so artful a dodger. As often as he showed himself on the woodpecker's side, the bird would make a vicious pass at him; and there would follow a moment of lively skurrying around the trunk of the old oak; then all would be quiet again.
Finally the squirrel seemed to get tired of the sport, and ran swiftly to the top and off through the branches into the neighboring trees. As this was probably all the woodpecker was fighting for, he did not give chase.
V
A BARN-DOOR OUTLOOK
I have a barn-door outlook because I have a hay-barn study, and I chose a hay-barn study because I wanted a barn-door outlook—a wide, near view into fields and woods and orchards where I could be on intimate terms with the wild life about me, and with free, open-air nature.
Usually there is nothing small or stingy about a barn door, and a farmer's hay-barn puts only a very thin partition between you and the outside world. Therefore, what could be a more fit place to thresh out dry philosophical subjects than a barn floor? I have a few such subjects to thresh out, and I thresh them here, turning them over as many times as we used to turn over the oat and rye sheaves in the old days when I wielded the hickory flail with my brothers on this same barn floor.
What a pleasure it is to look back to those autumn days, generally in September or early October, when we used to thresh out a few bushels of the new crop of rye to be taken to the grist-mill for a fresh supply of flour! How often we paused in our work to munch apples that had been mellowing in the haymow by our side, and look out through the big doorway upon the sunlit meadows and hill-slopes! The sound of the flail is heard in the old barn no more, but in its stead the scratching of a pen and the uneasy stirring of a man seated there behind a big box, threshing out a harvest for a loaf of much less general value.