Part 2

"I certainly did!" was his wife's grim response. "It was a very queer way for her to speak to you."

"It was nothing--" Reddy assured her--"nothing at all. She made a mistake."

"She certainly did!" cried Mrs. Woodpecker. "She didn't know I was right here where I could hear her. She should have been more careful. That's where she made a serious blunder."

"Oh, my goodness!" said Reddy. "I didn't mean that. It wasn't that sort of mistake. It was this sort: Mrs. Flicker----"

"Don't mention her name to me again!" shrilled Mrs. Woodpecker.

"Well, how can I talk about her, then?" Reddy asked his wife.

"If you feel that you _must_ talk about her," said Mrs. Woodpecker, "call her 'she.'"

"All right! She made this mistake: She thought she was talking to you."

Mrs. Woodpecker laughed bitterly at that.

"You'll have hard work making me believe it," she told her husband.

"Well, you ask her if it isn't the truth," Reddy urged.

"I will!" his wife promised. "Don't worry! I'll ask her.... And now," she added, "you'd better go and find some breakfast for the children. We can get along without any early tattoo this morning."

He went.

*VIII*

*AN EARLY CALL*

Mrs. Woodpecker flew to her neighbor Mrs. Flicker's tree and rapped, _tap-tap-tap-tap_. She didn't rap gently, either. She was not in a gentle mood. She intended to find out why Mrs. Flicker had called to Reddy Woodpecker, "Good morning, my dear!"

Mrs. Flicker promptly stuck her head out of her door.

"My husband is not at home," she said. And then she vanished.

"Well, the very idea! What a remark to make to me!" cried Mrs. Woodpecker. "As if I'd call on a gentleman!" Being angrier than ever, she rapped harder than before.

Again Mrs. Flicker peered out. Again she spoke.

"Did you wish to leave a message, Mr. Woodpecker?" she inquired.

"I'm not Mr. Woodpecker! I'm Mrs. Woodpecker!" shrieked the caller.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! My! My! My!" exclaimed Mrs. Flicker, who was greatly astonished. "I beg your pardon! Excuse me! It's my mistake."

"It certainly isn't mine," said Mrs. Reddy Woodpecker. "It seems to me you're making a good many mistakes this morning, madam."

Mrs. Flicker looked very unhappy. She wasn't used to being called 'madam.' She could see that Mrs. Woodpecker was furious. She wanted to be friends with Mrs. Woodpecker.

"You and Mr. Woodpecker look very much alike," Mrs. Flicker said to her angry caller. "When one of you peeps out of your house it's hard to tell who's who. Just now when I came to my doorway I could see only your head. And I thought it was your husband. When I spoke to your husband a few minutes ago I thought it was you."

Mrs. Woodpecker stared at her neighbor for a few moments. Somehow she thought Mrs. Flicker must be telling the truth.

"It's your red caps, I think," Mrs. Flicker went on. "They make you look like twins."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Woodpecker. "I hadn't thought of that. What can we do?" Her anger had suddenly left her.

"My husband and I have things nicely arranged," Mrs. Flicker told her caller.

"Now, you never have mistaken him for me, have you?"

"No!"

"Nor me for him?"

"No!"

"Do you know the reason?" Mrs. Flicker asked.

"No! No! I can't say I do," replied Mrs. Woodpecker eagerly.

"Well," said Mrs. Flicker, "my husband wears a black mustache.... And of course I don't," she added.

"That's it!" cried Mrs. Woodpecker. "I hadn't realized it. But it's so. And I must tell my husband to wear a mustache. It's the only safe way to avoid trouble. Then people can tell us apart."

Then Mrs. Woodpecker hurried away to speak to her husband. She was surprised that he didn't take kindly to her suggestion.

"I don't want to wear a mustache," he objected.

"But you _must_!" she insisted.

"Why don't _you_ wear one?" he inquired. "It would do just as well."

"Don't be silly!" she snapped. "Ladies never wear mustaches."

"Yes, they do," he replied.

"No, they don't!" she disputed.

Well, he saw at once that it was useless to argue with her.

"Come with me a moment, my dear!" Reddy begged her.

She thought he was going somewhere to get a mustache. So of course she hurried after him.

Reddy Woodpecker stopped beside Farmer Green's barn.

"There!" he said, as he waved a wing towards a great poster that was pasted upon the side of the barn. "Do you see that lady? She has a mustache--and a beard, too!"

It was just as he said. Mrs. Woodpecker couldn't help admitting that, to herself. And though she didn't speak to Reddy the rest of that day, he was satisfied. For she didn't mention mustaches to him again.

"It was lucky for me," he thought, "that the circus came to these parts this summer."

*IX*

*MRS. ROBIN WORRIES*

Though the Flickers welcomed Reddy Woodpecker when he came to live in Pleasant Valley there was hardly another bird family that wasn't sorry to see him settle there. Among all the feathered folk on Farmer Green's place the Robin family was perhaps the sorriest. They had a nest of eggs in the orchard, in a crotch of an old apple tree. And it was on just such trees that Reddy Woodpecker spent a great deal of his time, hunting for grubs.

Jolly Robin himself might not have paid much heed to Reddy. But Mrs. Robin was a great worrier. Often she worried over nothing at all. And now that she had had a few talks with timid little Mrs. Chippy about the newcomer, Reddy Woodpecker, Mrs. Robin firmly believed that he had come to the farm expressly to rob her of her four greenish-blue eggs. After each talk with Mrs. Chippy Mrs. Robin came home all a-flutter.

"We'll have to watch sharp!" she said to Jolly Robin again and again. "This Woodpecker person is a rascal. It's a pity we built here in the orchard. We'd have been safer on top of one of the posts under Farmer Green's porch."

"I mentioned that very place," Jolly reminded her. "But you were afraid of Miss Kitty Cat."

Not a day passed without some such words between them. Jolly did what he could to calm his wife's fears. He stayed near home all the time, when often he would have liked to fly across the meadow to chat with friends who lived on the edge of the woods.

Reddy Woodpecker never started to rap on a tree but Mrs. Robin set up a loud twitter, begging Jolly to hurry back to the nest.

He was wonderfully patient with her. Yet he couldn't help hoping, secretly, for the day when his family should be grown up and able to look out for themselves.

But if Mrs. Robin was anxious about her eggs her worry was nothing compared with what it became when the nestlings broke through their shells.

"This is the finest family in the whole valley," she confided to her husband. "I know that terrible Woodpecker person will steal these children if he can."

If the youngsters didn't peep for food their mother feared they were ill. If they did peep she feared Reddy Woodpecker would hear them. "He's such a dangerous person!" she would exclaim. "I wonder if he ever eats anything except eggs and nestlings."

"Yes, indeed!" Jolly assured her again and again. "He eats grubs, which he finds on the trees. And he eats insects, which he catches in the air."

"Thank goodness!" Mrs. Robin murmured. But her relief was short-lived. For she happened to meet little Mrs. Chippy one day and learned another bit of distressing news about Reddy Woodpecker. "He's a fruit eater!" Mrs. Robin told Jolly. "And you know we've been depending on the raspberries for our children."

A few days later she came home in a dreadful state of mind.

"I went to take a look at the raspberry patch," she explained to her good husband. "I knew the berries would soon be ripe. In fact I've had my eye on one that was almost ready to be picked. And what do you think? Eight before my own eyes that ruffianly Reddy Woodpecker picked it and ate it himself!"

"Don't worry about that!" said Jolly Robin.

But Mrs. Robin insisted on worrying; nothing he said could stop her.

"Reddy Woodpecker is taking the food out of our children's mouths!" she wailed. "You'll have to drive him away from the raspberry patch! You'll have to fight him!"

Now, Jolly Robin hardly thought that he was a match for Reddy Woodpecker. So when his wife gave him those orders he began to worry, himself.

*X*

*OBEYING ORDERS*

Jolly Robin's worrying wife wouldn't give him a moment's peace.

"You'd better get along over to the raspberry patch," she kept telling him. "If you don't hurry that terrible Reddy Woodpecker will eat every berry. He'll snatch each one as it ripens and we shall not have any to feed our children."

Now, Jolly Robin didn't care to have any trouble with Reddy Woodpecker. But he soon saw that if he avoided Reddy he would only have trouble with Mrs. Robin. So at last he said, "Very well! I'll attend to him, my love." And off he flew, looking much braver than he felt. You'd have thought, to see him, that he longed to find Reddy Woodpecker. Really he hoped that he wouldn't find Reddy anywhere.

Much to Jolly Robin's dismay he met Reddy Woodpecker among the raspberry bushes. Jolly jumped when he saw that dashing newcomer. But it was too late to dodge out of sight. Reddy Woodpecker saw him. So Jolly Robin made up his mind to put on a bold front. Sitting on a fence post that overlooked the raspberry patch he stared hard at Reddy Woodpecker. He thought perhaps he could frighten him away.

He might as well have stared at the barn door. To his great distress Reddy Woodpecker picked a berry and flew to a near-by post, where he sat and ate the fruit with relish. When he had finished the dainty he pretended to notice Jolly Robin for the first time and he bowed and scraped in the politest fashion.

Still Jolly Robin did not utter a word. Nor did he return any of Reddy's bows. But he began to feel himself swelling; he began to feel his feathers ruffle up. And he knew then that he must speak soon or burst. For there was no doubt that he was growing angry. So presently he cried:

"Was that raspberry ripe?"

"Yes," replied Reddy Woodpecker, "and very juicy."

Now, Jolly Robin hadn't meant to ask any such question as that. He had meant to make some cutting remark. But he was so in the habit of being pleasant to everybody that it was very hard for him to be disagreeable.

"A-ahem!" he said. "Pardon me, sir! Did--did you know that my wife and I have been expecting to pick these raspberries for our children?"

But he might as well have said nothing at all. For Reddy Woodpecker only laughed and exclaimed, "You're a joker, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," Jolly replied.

"Yes, you are," said Reddy Woodpecker. "You can't fool me. I know well enough that you don't intend to bring your children up on berries. I've seen you pulling angleworms for them too many times." Then Reddy dropped off his post and clung to a bush while he picked another berry that seemed redder than the rest.

"Well," Jolly thought, "I've talked to him anyhow. At least I can tell my wife that." So he left Reddy to enjoy the fruit and sailed away to his home.

"You're back very quickly," Mrs. Robin remarked when she saw him. "Didn't you find that Woodpecker person?"

"Oh, yes! I found him," Jolly explained. "I found him and I talked with him, too."

Mrs. Robin cast a sharp glance at her husband.

"Where is he now?" she inquired.

"He's eating raspberries in the berry patch," Jolly told her. "When I talked with him I said----"

"You _said_!" Mrs. Robin interrupted. "You _said_! The question is, what did you _do_? If you didn't fight him you must go back and do your duty."

There was nothing he could do except obey her. So, feeling very desperate, Jolly Robin hurried back to the place where the raspberry bushes grew by the fence. He gave three loud chirps, to encourage himself. And then he darted down and sailed very close to Reddy Woodpecker's head. He didn't pause an instant to see what effect this action had on Reddy Woodpecker, but flew away as quickly as he could. "I guess I scared him that time," he muttered.

Meanwhile Reddy Woodpecker stared after him and watched him as he disappeared among the apple tree tops.

"Well, what do you think of that?" he said to himself with a grin.

*XI*

*A VERY SHORT FIGHT*

Jolly Robin told his wife how he swooped down over Reddy Woodpecker's head. And he assured her that he had no doubt that Mr. Woodpecker would not be seen among the raspberry bushes again.

Jolly had felt quite pleased with himself. His threatened attack on Reddy had seemed to him to be very daring. So he was disappointed when his wife did not praise him.

"You ought to have stuck that rascal with your bill," Mrs. Robin complained. "If he's the sort of person I think he is he'll pay no heed to your warning."

As usual, Mrs. Robin proved to be right. That very day she herself beheld Reddy Woodpecker eating more raspberries. He had stolen every ripe berry. Though Mrs. Robin had hoped to find four (one for each of her nestlings) she didn't pick even one. They were all too hard and sour.

"It's a pity," she said to Jolly. "Everybody knows now-a-days that children need fruit. The day is past when you can bring them up on nothing but angleworms. You'll have to go back there to the raspberry patch and fight Reddy. You can't escape a fight any longer."

Well, what could he do? What could Jolly Robin do but obey his wife? He asked himself that question. And he could find only one answer. It was "Nothing!" There was nothing he could think of that would satisfy Mrs. Robin except a real battle. So he went forth.

Yes! Jolly Robin went forth very bravely to find Reddy Woodpecker. He meant to surprise him. But it was Jolly who received the surprise.

Reddy Woodpecker attacked first! The moment he spied Jolly Robin Reddy hurled himself at him. He skimmed so near to Jolly's head that that astonished little fellow ducked and hurried away. Yes! Jolly Robin retreated. It wasn't that Reddy Woodpecker was bigger than he was. To tell the truth, Reddy wasn't quite so big. But he liked to fight. And Jolly Robin loved peace.

Jolly hid in the midst of a thick hedge that grew beyond the fence. "Well," he muttered, "that fight was soon over. There's no use of telling Mrs. Robin about it. She would only worry." He there a long time. He didn't want to go home. He didn't know what to do. So he thought and thought; until at last a happy idea popped into his head. "I'll get help!" he exclaimed. "I'll get my friends from the other side of the meadow to come and help me fight Reddy."

Mrs. Robin was worrying terribly when Jolly reached home.

"You've been gone a long time," she complained. "Did you chase that Woodpecker person out of the valley?"

"No!" said Jolly. "But I expect to to-morrow."

"I thought I told you to fight him to-day," said his wife somewhat tartly.

"Yes! Yes!" he replied hastily. "We had a set-to--Mr. Woodpecker and I. But the real fight will take place to-morrow."

"I'm glad to hear you talk that way at last," she told him. "It's high time something was done."

*XII*

*JOLLY ROBIN'S HELPER*

The next morning Jolly Robin told his wife that she would have to do all the work of gathering the children's breakfast. "You know, my love," he explained, "I have important business to attend to to-day." And before she had time to object he left her.

Over near the garden fence he met three plump Robins who had flown across the meadow to help him fight Reddy Woodpecker. And soon the four had dropped down into the raspberry patch.

Reddy Woodpecker had not arrived. So, while they were waiting Jolly Robin's friends helped themselves to berries. Under the hot sun the fruit had ripened fast. Finding it both sweet and juicy they ate of it freely. And Jolly Robin could think of no reason why he should not do likewise.

By the time Reddy Woodpecker came, all the Robins from over the meadow were feeling so well fed and good-natured that they were in anything but a fighting mood.

"Let that Woodpecker enjoy this fruit if he likes it," they said to Jolly in an undertone. "There's more than enough for everybody. And now," they told him, "we must go home, because we have to help our wives feed our children."

Off they flew. And Jolly Robin found himself alone with Reddy Woodpecker.

"Ahem!" exclaimed Jolly Robin. "It's a fine morning, isn't it?"

"Delightful!" said Reddy Woodpecker.

"It looks as if you and I were going to have this raspberry patch all to ourselves, doesn't it?" Jolly continued.

Reddy Woodpecker agreed with him.

"We ought to keep others out of it," said Jolly.

Again Reddy Woodpecker was of the same mind as he.

"Then this is a bargain!" cried Jolly Robin. "I'll ask you to guard the place alone for a few minutes while I go home and speak to my wife."

Reddy Woodpecker grinned as he watched Jolly Robin winging his way homeward.

"Humph!" he grunted. "I may as well let that Robin have a taste of these berries. I certainly can't eat them all, nor carry them all home to my family."

Jolly Robin found his wife anxiously awaiting his return.

"Have you chased that Woodpecker person away?" she demanded.

"No, my love," he replied. "I 've made other arrangements. Mr. Woodpecker is working for me now. So of course I don't want to scare him off the farm. He's helping me at the raspberry patch. He's helping me to guard the fruit. In fact I couldn't have come back to speak to you now if it wasn't for him. He's watching the berries for me now."

"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Robin. "If that Woodpecker person is in the raspberry patch you may be sure he's eating berries as fast as he can."

"Only a few!" Jolly assured her. "There's more than enough for our family and his."

"How do you know that?" she demanded. "Did you count the berries?"

"No!" he replied.

"Go back and count them at once!" she commanded.

"Yes, my love!" Jolly answered.

He really did try to count the berries. But he soon found it to be an impossible task. Reddy Woodpecker ate so many raspberries and carried so many home to his children that Jolly Robin despaired of ever settling upon the correct number.

He felt very unhappy over the matter. And he even asked Reddy Woodpecker what he ought to do.

"Oh, tell your wife there are a million," Reddy Woodpecker suggested. "If she doesn't believe you, let her count them herself!"

"Oh, I couldn't do that," said Jolly Robin.

"Well, I say there are a million," Reddy declared. Then he picked and ate another berry. "Now there are nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine," he announced. "Go home and tell your wife I said so."

So Jolly Robin went. He went and told Mrs. Robin what Reddy Woodpecker had said.

She turned her back on him and exclaimed, "Fiddlesticks!"

*XIII*

*THE CARPENTER*

One day Reddy Woodpecker was _tap, tap, tapping_ on a tall poplar that grew beside the brook. He had discovered a tiny opening in the bark and he wanted to see what was at the further end of it.

Suddenly a voice called out, "Well, well, well! What is it?" And a pale-faced person not unlike Buster Bumblebee peered out at Reddy Woodpecker. He was careful to keep safely out of reach of Reddy's horny tongue. "I hope," said the dweller in the poplar, "you're not wanting me to build you a house. I can't work for you just now. I'm very busy to-day, making an addition to my own house."

Reddy stared at the speaker.

"I've already built my house--with my wife's help," he replied. "Why should you think I needed your assistance?"

"Because," said the other, "I'm Whiteface, the Carpenter Bee. The neighbors are always pestering me to help them."

Then Reddy Woodpecker noticed that Whiteface was covered with sawdust. But before he could examine him very closely the carpenter vanished.

"I must have another look at that queer person," Reddy thought. So he began to rap once more.

Again the carpenter peeped forth.

"If you're out of work," he said, "I'll tell you plainly that you can't find it here. I never employ strangers to work for me, for I'm _very_ particular." Then he was gone.

_Tap, tap, tap_! This time, when the carpenter answered Reddy's knocking, he was most impatient.

"Go away!" he cried. "You're shaking my whole house. I don't like it."

"Not so fast!" said Reddy Woodpecker. "I'm only making a friendly call. You and I are neighbors. But how am I ever going to get acquainted with you if you won't stop for a short chat?"

"I can't stand here idling my time away," the carpenter replied. "I'm a busy bee. Come inside if you want to see me!" And he disappeared again.

How could Reddy Woodpecker accept his invitation to enter? The carpenter's doorway was too small for him. And the wood was not the sort that Reddy liked to chisel away with his bill. It wasn't brittle enough to suit him. So he knocked again.

When the carpenter came rushing back to his doorway his pale face wore an anxious look.

"Oh!" he said. "I thought it was a fire. I thought somebody wanted to tell me my house was on fire. But it's only you. What do you want now?"

"I know you'd like to learn my name," Reddy Woodpecker began.

"Just leave your card!" the carpenter told him. "I'll look at it later when I have more time."

"When will that be?" Reddy demanded.

"I don't know," the odd person confessed. "It seems as if I never would get my house finished."

"Then," said Reddy, "there can't be any use in my leaving my card. Probably when you found time to look at it you wouldn't remember who left it."

"Probably not!" the carpenter admitted. "Good day, sir!" And he dodged out of sight.

Still Reddy Woodpecker was not discouraged. He knocked a fifth time.

"What!" exclaimed the carpenter when he answered Reddy's tapping. "Haven't you gone yet?"

"No!" Reddy replied. "I want to say----"

"If you have anything more to tell me, write me a letter!" said the pale-faced carpenter. And he set up a sign where Reddy Woodpecker could see it: "This Is My Busy Day!" Then he passed from view.

Reddy Woodpecker stayed a long time at the poplar tree beside the brook. He knocked and knocked and knocked until at last his head began to ache. But the sawdust-covered carpenter never showed his pale face again.

*XIV*

*MR. CROW'S QUESTIONS*

If people snubbed Reddy Woodpecker he never cared. When the members of the Pleasant Valley Singing Society wouldn't let him join them he only smiled and said he intended to form a club of his own.

As soon as the bird neighbors heard of Reddy's plan they were all very curious to know more about it. But whenever anybody asked him questions he had little to say.

"You'll learn all about it later," he told them. "Please don't bother me now, for I'm a busy bird. I'm starting my club."

It was easy for Reddy Woodpecker to keep his secrets from such small feathered folk as little Mr. Chippy. But there was one that couldn't rest until he found out what he wanted to know. This was old Mr. Crow. He shot question after question at Reddy Woodpecker. At last Reddy just had to tell him something in order to gain a little peace. Reddy knew that Mr. Crow would leave him as soon as he had picked up a bit of news. The old gentleman would hurry away to tell it to everybody in the valley.

"What's your club going to be named?" Whenever Mr. Crow talked with Reddy Woodpecker that was his favorite question. He asked it so many times and so loudly that just to get rid of him Reddy finally told him.

"I'm going to call my club 'The Redcaps,'" he said.

Old Mr. Crow didn't tarry an instant longer. With an eager look in his snapping black eyes he went flapping off on his broad wings, far down the valley.

Now, Mr. Crow was a fast worker. In an hour's time he had zigzagged back again, having spread his bit of news far and wide.

And when he had repeated it to the last neighbor he could find he hurried to the orchard to ask Reddy Woodpecker more questions.