In the woods there was hardly one of Solomon Owl"s neighbors that couldn"t point out the big hemlock tree where he lived. And mischievous fellows like Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r sometimes annoyed Solomon a good deal by rapping loudly on his door. When he thrust his head angrily out of his house and blinked in the sunlight, his tormentors would skip away and laugh. They laughed because they knew that they had awakened Solomon Owl. And they dodged out of his reach because he was always ill-tempered when anybody disturbed his rest in the daytime.
Solomon Owl did not mind so _very_ much so long as that trick was not played on him too often. But after a time it became one of Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r"s favorite sports. Not only once, but several times a day did he go to the hemlock grove to hammer upon Solomon"s hollow tree. And each time that he brought Solomon Owl to his door Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r laughed more loudly than ever before.
Once Solomon forgot to take off his nightcap (though he wore it in the daytime, it really was a nightcap). And Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r was so amused that he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"What"s the joke?" asked Solomon Owl in his deep, rumbling voice. He tried to look very severe. But it is hard to look any way except funny with a nightcap on one"s head.
As luck had it, Jasper Jay came hurrying up just then. He had heard Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r"s laughter. And if there was a joke he wanted to enjoy it, too.
Jasper Jay, alighting in a small hemlock near Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, asked the same question that Solomon Owl had just put to his rude caller.
"What"s the joke?" inquired Jasper Jay.
Reddy could not speak. He was rocking back and forth upon a limb, choking and gasping for breath. But he managed to point to the big tree where Solomon Owl lived.
And when Jasper looked, and saw Solomon"s great, round, pale, questioning face, all tied up in a red nightcap, he began to scream.
They were no ordinary screams-those shrieks of Jasper Jay"s. That blue-coated rascal was the noisiest of all the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley. And now he fairly made the woods echo with his hoa.r.s.e cries.
"This is the funniest sight I"ve ever seen!" Jasper Jay said at last, to n.o.body in particular. "I declare, there"s a pair of them!"
At that, Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r suddenly stopped laughing.
"A pair of what?" he asked.
"A pair of red-heads, of course!" Jasper Jay replied. "You"ve a red cap-and so has he!" Jasper pointed at Solomon Owl (a very rude thing to do!).
Then two things happened all at once. Solomon Owl s.n.a.t.c.hed off his red night-cap-which he had quite forgotten. And Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r dashed at Jasper Jay. He couldn"t pull off _his_ red cap, for it grew right on his head.
"So that"s what you"re laughing at, is it?" he cried angrily. And then n.o.body laughed any more-that is, n.o.body but Solomon Owl.
Solomon was so pleased by the fight that followed between Jasper Jay and Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r that his deep, rumbling laughter could be heard for half an hour-even if it _was_ midday. "_Wha-wha! Whoo-ah!_" The sound reached the ears of Farmer Green, who was just crossing a neighboring field, on his way home to dinner.
"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "I wonder what"s happened to that old owl!
Something must have tickled him-for I never heard an owl laugh in broad daylight before."
XXI AT HOME IN THE HAYSTACK
After what happened when he came to his door without remembering to take off his red nightcap, Solomon Owl hoped that Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r would stop teasing him.
But it was not so. Having once viewed Solomon"s red cap, Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r wanted to see it some more. So he came again and again and knocked on Solomon"s door.
Solomon Owl, however, remembered each time to remove his nightcap before sticking his head out. And it might be said that neither of them was exactly pleased. For Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r was disappointed; and Solomon Owl was angry.
Not a day pa.s.sed that Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r didn"t disturb Solomon"s rest at least a dozen times. Perhaps if Solomon had just kept still inside his house Reddy would have grown tired of bothering him. But Solomon Owl-for all he looked so wise-never thought of that.
But he saw before a great while that he would have to make a change of some sort-if he wanted to enjoy a good, quiet sleep again.
For a long time Solomon Owl pondered. It was a great puzzle-to know just how to outwit Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. And Solomon almost despaired of finding a way out of the difficulty. But at last an idea came to him, all in a flash. He would take his daytime naps somewhere else!
Solomon spent several nights looking for a good place to pa.s.s his days.
And in the end he decided on the meadow. It would be convenient, he thought, when he was hunting meadow mice at dawn, if he could stay right there, without bothering to go into the woods to sleep.
Since there were no trees in the meadow, but only a few scrubby bushes along the stone wall, one might naturally make the mistake of thinking that there could not possibly be a nook of any kind that would suit Solomon Owl, who could never sleep soundly unless his bedroom was quite dark.
But there was one hiding place that Solomon liked almost as well as his home in the hollow hemlock. And that was Farmer Green"s haystack. He burrowed into one side of it and made himself a snug chamber, which was as dark as a pocket-and ever so much quieter. What pleased Solomon most, however, was this: n.o.body knew about that new retreat except himself.
Even if Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r should succeed in finding it, he never could disturb Solomon by drumming upon the haystack. If Reddy tried that trick, his bill would merely sink noiselessly into the hay.
So Solomon Owl at last had a good day"s rest. And when he met Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r just after sunset, Solomon was feeling so cheerful that he said "Good-evening!" quite pleasantly, before he remembered that it was Reddy who had teased him so often.
"Good-evening!" Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r replied. He seemed much surprised that Solomon Owl should be so agreeable. "Can you hear me?" Reddy asked him.
"Perfectly!" said Solomon.
"That"s strange!" Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r exclaimed. "I was almost sure you had suddenly grown deaf." And he could not understand why Solomon Owl laughed loud and long.
"_Wha-wha! Whoo-ah!_" Solomon"s deep-voiced laughter rolled and echoed through the woodland.
But Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r did not laugh at all.
XXII IT WAS SOLOMON"S FAULT
Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r had a very good reason for not laughing when he met Solomon Owl. Of course, he knew nothing whatever of Solomon"s new hiding place in the haystack. And that very morning Reddy had invited a party of friends to go with him to the hemlock grove where Solomon Owl had always lived, "to have some fun," as Reddy had explained.
For a long time he had knocked and hammered and pounded at Solomon Owl"s door. But for once Solomon"s great pale face did not appear.
"Where"s the fun?" Reddy"s friends had wanted to know, after they had waited until they were impatient.
And Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r could only shake his head and say:
"I can"t understand it! It"s never happened like this before. I"m afraid Solomon Owl has lost his hearing."
Reddy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r"s friends were no more polite than he. And they began to jeer at him.
"You didn"t hammer loud enough," one of them told him.
So he set to work again and rapped and rapped until his head felt as if it would fly off, and his neck began to ache.