"One morning in April a young canary-bird whose name was Tufty escaped
through an open window carelessly left open while he was out of his
cage, and suddenly found himself, for the first time in his life, in the
open air. He alighted first on an apple-tree in the yard, and then made
a grand flight half-way to the top of the elm-tree.
"The sun was bright and the air so still that the light snow which had
fallen in the night yet clung to the branches and twigs of the tree, and
Tufty examined it with interest, thinking it pretty but rather cold as
he poked it about with his bill, and tucked first one little foot, and
then the other, under him to keep it warm. Presently he heard an odd
little noise below him, and, looking down, saw on the trunk of the tree
a bird about his own size, with wings and back of a steel-gray color, a
white breast with a dash of dull red on it, and a long bill, with which
he was making the noise Tufty had heard by tapping on the tree.
"'Good-morning!' said Tufty, who was of a friendly and social
disposition, and was beginning to feel the need of company.
"'Morning!' said the woodpecker, very crisp and shorthand not so much as
looking up to see who had spoken to him.
"If you had heard this talk you would have said Tufty called out: 'Peep!
peep!' and the woodpecker--but that's because you don't understand
bird-language.
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