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The cold water dispelled the last vestige of sleepiness and she stood erect and breathed deeply of the crystal air. At the farther side of the bowl-like plateau the horses grazed contentedly, and a tiny black and white woodpecker flew from tree to tree pecking busily at the bark.
Here the red-headed woodpecker waited, with low "k-r-r-r-r" and many bows to the universe in general, to see if the way were clear for him to go to the fence. Nothing is so good to bring birds into sight as an old fence or a dead tree. On the single leafless branch at the top of an old apple-tree the student will generally see, at one time or another, every bird in an orchard.
Also it twittered another greater name that may not be uttered, that of an elephant who shakes the earth, and said that this elephant sniffs the air with his trunk and grows angry, and sharpens his tusks to dig a certain Woodpecker out of his hole in a tree that grows near the Witch Mountain.
What a devilishly noisy woodpecker!" And, looking up, he drew bridle sharply. For there, on the wood's edge, stood a familiar gray mare, and in the saddle, astride, sat Alida Ascott, busily hammering tacks into a trespass notice printed on white muslin, and attached to the trunk of a big maple-tree.
You can hold the three straws; long one is Woodpecker that's his head with a bit of red flannel to prevent mistakes; the middle-sized thin one is me; and the short fat one is you. Now let them drop. Sudden death and no try over." The straws fell, and the two boys gave a yell as Hawkeye's fate pointed straight to the Burns homestead. "Oh, get out; that's no good.
Nothing moved; the heated scent of the Southern pines hung heavy in the forest; in the long, dry swale-grass of the clearing, yellow butterflies were flying lazily; on a dead branch above her a huge woodpecker, with pointed, silky cap, uttered a querulous cry from moment to moment.
Disturbed so rudely from his pleasing occupation, the intruder retired before the attack, though he protested vigorously; and so great was the fascination of the spot, that he returned again and again, every time to go through the same process of being driven away. The raspberry hedge before my windows was the decoy that gave me my best chance to study the red-headed woodpecker.
He remembered hearing people laugh and joke about the new jail. No less a person than Cap' Redberry had said, after a casual inspection of the calaboose, that if THAT was what they called a jail he'd hate to be inside of it if a woodpecker started to peckin' at it, 'cause if such a thing happened the whole blamed she-bang would cave in and like as not hurt him considerable.
Your parrot, under his bright cynical feathers, is a modest fowl that grasps at every opportunity of education from the best source man. In a native state his intelligence remains closed: the desire to be like a woodpecker or a humming-bird does not pick at the cover.
I heard the drumming here, and the next day at sunset at Furlow Lake, the source of Dry Brook, and in no instance was the order varied. There was a melody in it, such as a woodpecker knows how to evoke from a smooth, dry branch. It suggested something quite as pleasing as the liveliest bird-song, and was if anything more woodsy and wild.
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