Every morning when he awakened he looked first of all at his feathers.
Those on his breast were white, and he had a white band on his wings.
His tail and back and nearly the whole of his wings were blue-black. His head, neck, and throat were crimson. To be sure, while the feathers were growing, the colors were not very bright, for the down was mixed with them, and the quills showed so plainly that the young birds looked rather streaked.
The sisters were getting their new suits at the same time, and there was just as much reason why they should be vain, but they were not. They were glad (as who would not be?) and they often said to each other: "How pretty you are growing!" They looked exactly like their brother, for it is not with the Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs as with many other birds,--the sons and daughters are dressed in precisely the same way.
As for the vain young Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, he had many troubles. He was not contented to let his feathers grow as the gra.s.s and the leaves grow, without watching. No indeed! He looked at each one every day and a great many times every day. Then, if he thought they were not growing as fast as they should, he worried about it. He wanted to hurry them along, and sometimes, when his sisters did not seem to be looking, he took hold of them with his bill and pulled. Of course this did not make them grow any faster and it did make his skin very sore, but how was he to know? He had not been out of the sh.e.l.l long enough to be wise.
It troubled him, too, because he could not see his red feathers. He twisted his head this way and that, and strained his eyes until they ached, trying to see his own head and neck. It was very annoying. He thought it would have been much nicer to have the brightest feathers in a fellow"s tail, where he could see them, or at any rate on his breast; and he asked his mother why it couldn"t be so.
"I once knew a young Woodp.e.c.k.e.r," she said, "who thought of very little but his own beauty. I am afraid that if he had been allowed to wear his red feathers in his tail, he would never have seen anything else in this wonderful great world, but just his own poor little tail." She looked out of the doorway as she spoke, but he knew that she meant him.
Things went on in this way until the children were ready to fly. Then there were daily lessons in flying, alighting, clinging to branches, and tapping for food on the bark of trees. They learned, too, how to support themselves with their stiff tails when they were walking up trees or stopping to eat with their claws hooked into the bark. Then Mrs.
Red-headed Woodp.e.c.k.e.r taught them how to tell the ripest and sweetest fruit on the trees before they tasted it. That is something many people would like to know, but it is a forest secret, and no bird will tell anyone who cannot fly.
It was on his way back from an orchard one day, that the vain young Woodp.e.c.k.e.r stopped to talk with an old Gray Squirrel. It may be that the Gray Squirrel"s sight was not good, and so he mistook the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r for quite another fellow. He was speaking of an old tree where he had spent the last winter. "I believe a family of Red-headed Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs live there now," he said. "I have met them once or twice. The father and mother are fine people, and they have charming daughters, but their son must be a great trial to them. He is one of these silly fellows who see the world through their own feathers."
As the young Red-headed Woodp.e.c.k.e.r flew away, he repeated this to himself: "A silly fellow, a silly fellow, who sees the world through his own feathers." And he said to his father, "Whose feathers must I look through?"
This puzzled his father. "Whose feathers should you look through?" said he. "What do you mean?"
"Well," answered the son, "somebody said that I saw the world through my own feathers, and I don"t see how I can get anybody else"s."
How his father did laugh! "I don"t see why you should look through any feathers," said he. "What he meant was that you thought so much of your own plumage that you did not care for anything else; and it is so. If it were intended you should look at yourself all the time, your eyes would have been one under your chin and the other in the back of your head.
No! They are placed right for you to look at other people, and are where they help you hunt for food."
"How often may I look at my own feathers?" asked the young Woodp.e.c.k.e.r.
He was wondering at that minute how his tail looked, but he was determined not to turn his head.
The old Woodp.e.c.k.e.r"s eyes twinkled. "I should think," he said, "that since you are young and have no family to look after, you might preen your feathers in the morning and in the afternoon and when you go to sleep. Then, of course, when it is stormy, you will have to take your waterproof out of the pocket under your tail, and put it on one feather at a time, as all birds do. That would be often enough unless something happened to rumple them."
"I will not look at them any oftener," said the young Red-headed Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, firmly. "I will _not_ be called a silly fellow." And he was as good as his word.
His mother sighed when she heard of the change. "I am very glad," said she. "But isn"t that always the way? His father and I have talked and talked, and it made no difference; but let somebody else say he is silly and vain, and behold!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
THE NIGHT MOTH WITH A CROOKED FEELER
The beautiful, brilliant b.u.t.terflies of the Meadow had many cousins living in the forest, most of whom were Night Moths. They also were very beautiful creatures, but they dressed in duller colors and did not have slender waists. Some of the b.u.t.terflies, you know, wear whole gowns of black and yellow, others have stripes of black and white, while some have clear yellow with only a bit of black tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the edges of the wings.
The Moths usually wear brown and have it brightened with touches of buff or dull blue. If they do wear bright colors, it is only on the back pair of wings, and when the Moth alights, he slides his front pair of wings over these and covers all the brightness. They do not rest with their wings folded over their heads like the b.u.t.terflies, but leave them flat.
All the day long, when the sun is shining, the Moths have to rest on trees and dead leaves. If they were dressed in yellow or red, any pa.s.sing bird would see them, and there is no telling what might happen.
As it is, their brown wings are so nearly the color of dead leaves or bark that you might often look right at them without seeing them.
Yet even among Moths there are some more brightly colored than others, and when you find part of the family quietly dressed you can know it is because they have to lay the eggs. Moths are safer in dull colors, and the egg-layers should always be the safest of all. If anything happened to them, you know, there would be no Caterpillar babies.
One day a fine-looking Cecropia Moth came out of her chrysalis and clung to the nearest twig while her wings grew and dried and flattened. At first they had looked like tiny brown leaves all drenched with rain and wrinkled by somebody"s stepping on them. The fur on her fat body was matted and wet, and even her feelers were damp and stuck to her head.
Her six beautiful legs were weak and trembling, and she moved her body restlessly while she tried again and again to raise her crumpled wings.
She had not been there so very long before she noticed another Cecropia Moth near her, clinging to the under side of a leaf. He was also just out of the chrysalis and was drying himself. "Good morning!" he cried.
"I think I knew you when we were Caterpillars. Fine day to break the chrysalis, isn"t it?"
"Lovely," she answered. "I remember you very well. You were the Caterpillar who showed me where to find food last summer when the hot weather had withered so many of the plants."
"I thought you would recall me," he said. "And when we were spinning our chrysalides we visited together. Do you remember that also?"
Miss Cecropia did. She had been thinking of that when she first spoke, but she hoped he had forgotten. To tell the truth, he had been rather fond of her the fall before, and she, thinking him the handsomest Caterpillar of her acquaintance, had smiled upon him and suggested that they spin their coc.o.o.ns near together. During the long winter she had regretted this. "I was very foolish," she thought, "to encourage him.
When I get my wings I may meet people who are better off than he. Now I shall have to be polite to him for the sake of old friendship. I only hope that he will make other acquaintances and leave me free. I must get into the best society."
All this time her neighbor was thinking, "I am so glad to see her again, so glad, so glad! When my wings are dry I will fly over to her and we will go through the forest together." He was a kind, warm-hearted fellow, who cared more for friendship than for beauty or family.
Meanwhile their wings were growing fast, and drying, and flattening, so that by noon they could begin to raise them above their heads. They were very large Moths and their wings were of a soft dust color with little clear, transparent places in them and touches of the most beautiful blue, quite the shade worn by the Peac.o.c.k, who lived on the farm. There was a brown and white border to their wings, and on their bodies and legs the fur was white and dark orange. When the Cecropias rest, they spread their wings out flat, and do not slide the front pair over the others as their cousins, the Sphinxes, do. The most wonderful of all, though, are their feelers.
The b.u.t.terflies have stiff feelers on their heads with little k.n.o.bs on the ends, or sometimes with part of them thick like tiny clubs. The Night Moths have many kinds of feelers, most of them being curved, and those of the Cecropias look like reddish-brown feathers pointed at the end.
Miss Cecropia"s feelers were perfect, and she waved them happily to and fro. Those of her friend, she was troubled to see, were not what they should have been. One of them was all right, the other was small and crooked. "Oh dear," she said to herself, "how that does look! I hope he will not try to be attentive to me." He did not mind it much. He thought about other things than looks.
As night came, a Polyphemus Moth fluttered past. "Good evening!" cried he. "Are you just out? There are a lot of Cecropias coming out to-day."
Miss Cecropia felt quite agitated when she heard this, and wondered if she looked all right. Her friend flew over to her just as she raised her wings for flight. "Let me go with you," he said.
While she was wondering how she could answer him, several other Cecropias came along. They were all more brightly colered than she.
"Hullo!" cried one of them, as he alighted beside her. "First-rate night, isn"t it?"
He was a handsome fellow, and his feelers were perfect; but Miss Cecropia did not like his ways, and she drew away from him just as her friend knocked him off the branch. While they were fighting, another of the strangers flew to her. "May I sit here?" he asked.
"Yes," she murmured, thinking her chance had come to get into society.
"I must say that it served the fellow right for his rudeness to you,"
said the stranger, in his sweetest way; "but who is the Moth who is punishing him--that queer-looking one with a crooked feeler?"
"Sir," said she, moving farther from him, "he is a friend of mine, and I do not think it matters to you if he is queer-looking."
"Oh!" said the stranger. "Oh! oh! oh! You have a bad temper, haven"t you? But you are very good-looking in spite of that." There is no telling what he would have said next, for at this minute Miss Cecropia"s friend heard the mean things he was saying, and flew against him.
It was not long before this stranger also was punished, and then the Moth with the crooked feeler turned to the others. "Do any of you want to try it?" he said. "You must understand that you cannot be rude before her." And he pointed his right fore leg at Miss Cecropia as she sat trembling on the branch.
"Her!" they cried mockingly, as they flew away. "There are prettier Moths than she. We don"t care anything for her."
Miss Cecropia"s friend would have gone after them to punish them for this impoliteness, but she clung to him and begged him not to. "You will be killed, I know you will," she sobbed. "And then what will become of me?"
"Would you miss me?" he asked, as he felt of one of his wings, now broken and bare.
"Yes," she cried. "You are the best friend I have. Please don"t go."