"I saw your mother brace herself against the tree with her stiff tail. Then how her wedge-shaped bill rapped and rapped against the wood. For fully twenty minutes she rapped away at the rotten wood. Then she grew tired and your father took her place at the tree-trunk.
"Soon they pecked a hole deep enough to hide them from sight, but their constant rap, rap, rap could still be heard.
"I wondered how deep they made the hole, but it was too high for me to climb to find out."
"Having just come from the nest I can tell you all about it," replied the young woodpecker. "My parents dug down into the soft trunk to a depth of perhaps eighteen inches. At the bottom they hollowed out a large roomy place for the nest. They did not line it with feathers or grasses. Instead of a bed of moss was a little sawdust and the smooth white sides of the oak.
"In this nest my mother laid six pure white eggs. She sat on them and kept them warm until at last six downy birds came out of the shells.
"We were hungry little things. Both our mother and father were kept busy filling our greedy, ever-open mouths.
"And whatever they brought was sure to be very nice. Sometimes it was a cherry or a berry, sometimes a bit of pear or apple.
"But, best of all, were the fat, juicy little grubs which they often brought.
"I asked my father where he got the grubs. He made fun of me and called out to my mother in his shrill, lively way.
"She said that that was a thing which every young woodpecker should find out for himself.