Children Stories - The Red-headed Woodpecker

Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio... Read more of The Missing Dollar at Free Jokes.ca

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The Red-headed Woodpecker

from Nature Myths And Stories For Little Children

There was an old woman who lived on a hill. You never heard of any one
smaller or neater than she was. She always wore a black dress and a
large white apron with big bows behind.

On her head was the queerest little red bonnet that you ever saw.

It is a sad thing to tell, but this woman had grown very selfish as the
years went by.

People said this was because she lived alone and thought of nobody but
herself.

One morning as she was baking cakes, a tired, hungry man came to her
door.

"My good woman," said he, "will you give me one of your cakes? I am very
hungry. I have no money to pay for it, but whatever you first wish for
you shall have."

The old woman looked at her cakes and thought that they were too large
to give away. She broke off a small bit of dough and put it into the
oven to bake.

When it was done she thought this one was too nice and brown for a
beggar.

She baked a smaller one and then a smaller one, but each one was as nice
and brown as the first.

At last she took a piece of dough only as big as the head of a pin; yet
even this, when it was baked, looked as fine and large as the others.

So the old woman put all the cakes on the shelf and offered the stranger
a dry crust of bread.

The poor man only looked at her and before she could wink her eye he was
gone.

She had done wrong and of course she was unhappy.

"Oh, I wish I were a bird!" said she, "I would fly to him with the
largest cake on the shelf."

As she spoke she felt herself growing smaller and smaller until the wind
whisked her up the chimney.

She was no longer an old woman but a bird as she had wished to be. She
still wore her black dress and red bonnet. She still seemed to have the
large white apron with the big bows behind.

Because from that day she pecked her food from the hard wood of a tree,
people named this bird the red-headed wood-pecker.

Next: The Story Of The Pudding Stone
Previous: An Indian Story Of The Robin

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