One day she was baking some cakes and a poor hungry man came to the door and begged for one. “Please give me one of those cakes you are baking,” said he. “I am very poor and hungry and am weak from tramping so far.” And then the man sat down on the door step while the old woman thought it over.
The old woman broke off a piece of dough and put it into the oven to bake. After it was baked she decided it looked so nice and brown that it was too large to give away. She then broke off a very small piece of dough and put it in the oven to bake. After it was baked it was as nice and large as the other one. At last she broke off a piece as small as a pinhead. After it was baked it was as large and nice as the others.
She looked at the old man and said: “These cakes are too nice to give away,” and then she put the cakes away in the cupboard.
Then she offered the man a piece of bread. The poor man took the crust of bread and disappeared. The woman then felt sorry she had given away even so small a piece of bread and wanted it back again. She said: “I wish I were a bird so I could fly to this man and get my crust of bread back.”
All at once she felt herself growing smaller and smaller. Then she shrank to the size of a bird. She still had on the black dress and the red bonnet. She flew after the man and cried out, “Crust! Crust! My Crust!” But the man could not be found. She looked in the woods, she looked in the chimneys, and she decided he had hidden in a tree. So she began to Tap! Tap! Tap! at every tree she lit on.
She was now no longer a woman but a bird. Her black dress became the body of the bird, her white apron became the white wings, and the red bonnet became the red head of the bird. She is called the red-headed woodpecker.
All day long she knocks at trees. Her head is so hard that it never hurts, no matter how hard she knocks. She is still trying to find her crust of bread. All we know is that when she finds a worm she eats it on the spot and never leaves even a bite for the other birds.