Part 5 (1/2)

Pee-wee! Pee-wee!” But he wasn't sad, as Peter well knew. It was his way of expressing how happy he felt. He was a little bigger than his cousin, Chebec, but looked very much like him. There was a little notch in the end of his tail. The upper half of his bill was black, but the lower half was light. Peter could see on each wing two whitish bars, and he noticed that Pewee's wings were longer than his tail, which wasn't the case with Chebec. But no one could ever mistake Pewee for any of his relatives, for the simple reason that he keeps repeating his own name over and over.

”Aren't you here early?” asked Peter.

Pewee nodded. ”Yes,” said he. ”It has been unusually warm this spring, so I hurried a little and came up with my cousins, Sc.r.a.pper and Cresty.

That is something I don't often do.”

”If you please,” Peter inquired politely, ”why do folks call you Wood Pewee?”

Pewee chuckled happily. ”It must be,” said he, ”because I am so very fond of the Green Forest. It is so quiet and restful that I love it. Mrs. Pewee and I are very retiring. We do not like too many near neighbors.”

”You won't mind if I come to see you once in a while, will you?” asked Peter as he prepared to start on again for the dear Old Briar-patch.

”Come as often as you like,” replied Pewee. ”The oftener the better.”

Back in the Old Briar-patch Peter thought over all he had learned about the Flycatcher family, and as he recalled how they were forever catching all sorts of flying insects it suddenly struck him that they must be very useful little people in helping Old Mother Nature take care of her trees and other growing things which insects so dearly love to destroy.

But most of all Peter thought about that queer request of Cresty's, and a dozen times that day he found himself peeping under old logs in the hope of finding a cast-off coat of Mr. Black Snake. It was such a funny thing for Cresty to ask for that Peter's curiosity would allow him no peace, and the next morning he was up in the Old Orchard before jolly Mr. Sun had kicked his bedclothes off.

Jenny Wren was as good as her word. While she flitted and hopped about this way and that way in that fussy way of hers, getting her breakfast, she talked. Jenny couldn't keep her tongue still if she wanted to.

”Did you find any old clothes of the Snake family?” she demanded. Then as Peter shook his head her tongue ran on without waiting for him to reply. ”Cresty and his wife always insist upon having a piece of Snake skin in their nest,” said she. ”Why they want it, goodness knows! But they do want it and never can seem to settle down to housekeeping unless they have it. Perhaps they think it will scare robbers away. As for me, I should have a cold chill every time I got into my nest if I had to sit on anything like that. I have to admit that Cresty and his wife are a handsome couple, and they certainly have good sense in choosing a house, more sense than any other member of their family to my way of thinking.

But Snake skins! Ugh!”

”By the way, where does Cresty build?” asked Peter.

”In a hole in a tree, like the rest of us sensible people,” retorted Jenny Wren promptly.

Peter looked quite as surprised as he felt. ”Does Cresty make the hole?”

he asked.

”Goodness gracious, no!” exclaimed Jenny Wren. ”Where are your eyes, Peter? Did you ever see a Flycatcher with a bill that looked as if it could cut wood?” She didn't wait for a reply, but rattled on. ”It is a good thing for a lot of us that the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r family are so fond of new houses. Look! There is Downy the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r hard at work on a new house this very minute. That's good. I like to see that. It means that next year there will be one more house for some one here in the Old Orchard.

For myself I prefer old houses. I've noticed there are a number of my neighbors who feel the same way about it. There is something settled about an old house. It doesn't attract attention the way a new one does.

So long as it has got reasonably good walls, and the rain and the wind can't get in, the older it is the better it suits me. But the Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs seem to like new houses best, which, as I said before, is a very good thing for the rest of us.”

”Who is there besides you and Cresty and Bully the English Sparrow who uses these old Woodp.e.c.k.e.r houses?” asked Peter.

”Winsome Bluebird, stupid!” snapped Jenny Wren.

Peter grinned and looked foolish. ”Of course,” said he. ”I forgot all about Winsome.”

”And Skimmer the Tree Swallow,” added Jenny.

”That's so; I ought to have remembered him,” exclaimed Peter. ”I've noticed that he is very fond of the same house year after year. Is there anybody else?”

Again Jenny Wren nodded. ”Yank-Yank the Nuthatch uses an old house, I'm told, but he usually goes up North for his nesting,” said she. ”Tommy t.i.t the Chickadee sometimes uses an old house. Then again he and Mrs.

Chickadee get fussy and make a house for themselves. Yellow Wing the flicker, who really is a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, often uses an old house, but quite often makes a new one. Then there are Killy the Sparrow Hawk and Spooky the Screech Owl.”