“That would be fine if the weather stays warm, but I shall never forget that awful chill I had, year before last!”
“That settles it!” said Robert Robin. “We will go to the seashore, where the weather is almost always good!”
“You have the best judgment about everything, dear!” said Mrs. Robin. “You always know just how to decide it! It is perfectly wonderful how quickly you make up your mind!”
“My father was the same way!” said Robert Robin. “I think it runs in our family!” Then Robert Robin felt so fine that he flew up to the top of a hickory tree and sang his “Pick Pickles” song.
“Pick pickles!
Pick pickles!
A teasel tick tickles!
A peasel pick pickles!
A teasel pick pickles!”
And old Mister Woodpecker stopped drumming on his tree, and looked at Robert Robin and laughed and said:
“Every time I hear you sing that foolish song, I have to laugh in spite of myself!”
Then Old Mister Woodpecker started to drill another hole, but he was still so full of giggles that he could not get his mouth closed, and every time just as he went to tap the tree with his bill he would give a giggle.
“A teasel pick pickles! Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Old Mister Woodpecker. “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and it was four minutes before he could get the corner of his lips down so that he could get his mouth closed.
So Old Mister Woodpecker could not laugh and work at the same time, and that may be the reason why only a very few people have ever heard Mister Woodpecker laugh out loud, and not so very many people have even seen him smile.