Wudpecker

wudpecker

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon Books series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . The Woodpecker Who was Selfish The Woodpecker Who was Selfish STORIES THAT HELP A CHILD TO VERBAL EXPRESSION There was once a little Lady Woodpecker—such a trim, tidy little Lady Woodpecker—who wore always a natty red bonnet, and a white apron and who lived in a hole in a big Pine Tree. Her house was cozy and comfortable, all lined with moss and wool, and protected by a little brown bark door so that it was cool in the summer time and warm when the winter winds blew. But the little Lady Woodpecker was a selfish bird and she never, never asked any other birds to come and visit with her in her house in the Pine Tree. In the next tree to the little Lady Woodpecker lived a Fluffy Sparrow. His nest was loosely built and untidy and it rested insecurely in a fork of a tree so that the wind blew it this way and that way. This was because all sparrows are poor nest builders and it was not the Fluffy Sparrow’s fault at all. One day there was an unusually heavy storm and down from the tree blew the nest. So the Sparrow had now no home. Then the Fluffy Sparrow flew and hopped and twittered beside the little brown bark door above the little Lady Woodpecker and said: “Oh, little Lady Woodpecker with the red bonnet, have pity on me and take me into your house, for the rain falls and I am very, very cold.” But the little Lady Woodpecker tapped with her bill on the wall of her house and answered: “I can’t let you in to-day, Fluffy Sparrow. I am cooking juniper berries for a batch of pies. Come again some other time and perhaps I will let you in.” So the Fluffy Sparrow hopped away and the rain made him very, very cold. The next day the Fluffy Sparrow flew and hopped and twittered again beside the little brown bark door of the little Lady Woodpecker and said: “Oh, little Lady Woodpecker with the red bonnet, have pity on me and take me into your house, for the cold and cruel wind blows and it ruffles my feathers.” But the little Lady Woodpecker tapped again with her bill on the wall of her house and answered: “I can’t let you in to-day, Fluffy Sparrow. I am washing the pot in which I cooked a batch of juniper berries for a batch of pies. Come again some other time and perhaps I will let you in.” So the Fluffy Sparrow hopped away and the cold and cruel wind ruffled his feathers. The day after that the Fluffy Sparrow flew and hopped and twittered again beside the little brown bark door of the little Lady Woodpecker and said: “Oh, little Lady Woodpecker, have pity on me and take me into your house, for the biting frost nips my feet.” But the little Lady Woodpecker tapped again with her bill on the wall of her house and answered: “I can’t let you in to-day, Fluffy Sparrow. I am making the crust for my batch of juniper berry pies. Come again some other time and perhaps I will let you in.” So the Fluffy Sparrow hopped away and the biting frost nipped his feet. But the fourth day the Fluffy Sparrow flew and hopped and twittered once again beside the little brown bark door of the little Lady Woodpecker and said: “Oh, little Lady Woodpecker with the little red bonnet, have pity on me and take me into your house, for the snow blinds me.” But the little Lady Woodpecker tapped very hard with her bill on the wall of her house and answered: “I can’t let you in to-day, Fluffy Sparrow. I am cleaning my floor before I sit down, all by myself, to eat my juniper berry pies.” So the blinding frost blinded the Fluffy Sparrow’s eyes. Then the last day of all the Fluffy Sparrow flew and hopped and twittered beside the little brown bark door of the little Lady Woodpecker and he said: “Oh, little Lady Woodpecker with the little red bonnet, please have pity on me and take me into your house, for I do not like the rain and the wind and the frost and the snow.” But the little Lady Woodpecker did not answer the Fluffy Sparrow. And the Fluffy Sparrow lifted one claw and poked open the little bark door and he saw that no one was inside. The little Lady Woodpecker was away buying a key with which to lock her door while she ate her batch of juniper berry pies. So the Fluffy Sparrow went inside the house in the tree that was so cozy and comfortable because it was lined with moss and wool. There he was sheltered from the rain and the wind and the frost and the snow. He ate up all the batch of juniper berry pies. When the little Lady Woodpecker came home the Fluffy Sparrow was living in her house and she had to find herself a new one because she had been such a selfish bird. An Indian Folk Tale. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm#Page_181 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

Stories for Telling: The Woodpecker Who was Selfish

Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology

The Story-book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . IN THE WOODS here CHAPTER LXIV. IN THE WOODS THE history of mushrooms reduced to a rule for cooking which will save us from grave dangers was enough for Simon, Mathieu, Jean, and the others, who lacked time to hear more; but Emile, Jules, and Claire were not satisfied: they wished to extend their knowledge on these strange vegetables. So their uncle took them one day to a beech wood near the village. The trees, several hundred years old and with their branches meeting at a great height, formed an arch of foliage through which, here and there, shone a ray of sunlight. Their smooth trunks, with white bark, gave the effect of enormous columns sustaining the weight of an immense building full of shade and silence. On the lofty summits crows cawed while smoothing their feathers. Occasionally a redheaded green woodpecker, surprised at its work, which consists of pecking the wormy wood with its beak to make the insects come out that it feeds on, gave a cry of alarm and flew off like a dart. In the midst of the moss with which the ground was carpeted were here and there numbers of mushrooms. Some were round, smooth, and white. Jules could not admire them enough; he likened them in his imagination to eggs laid in a mossy hollow by some wandering hen. Others were glossy red, others bright fawn-color, and still others brilliant yellow. Some, just coming out of the ground, were enveloped in a kind of bag that tears open as the mushroom grows; some, more advanced, spread out like an open umbrella. Finally, there were many that had already begun to decay. In their fetid rottenness swarmed innumerable grubs, which later would become insects. After picking a number of the principal kinds, the party sat down at the foot of a beech, on the soft moss-carpet, and Uncle Paul spoke thus: “A mushroom is the blossom of a plant that lives under ground and is called by learned men mycelium. This subterranean plant is composed of white, slender, fragile threads, resembling in their entirety a large cobweb. If you pull up a mushroom carefully you will see at the base of its stalk, in the earth that clings to it, numerous white threads of the mycelium. Let us imagine a rosebush planted so as to leave nothing but the roses above ground. The buried bush will represent the subterranean mycelium; the roses, open to the air, will represent the blossoms of the mycelium, that is to say the mushrooms.” “A rosebush,” objected Jules, “has stout branches covered with leaves; the mushroom-plant, according to what I see, has nothing of the sort. It is a kind of moldiness that branches out in the ground in white veins.” “Those white veins, so delicate that one can hardly touch them without breaking them, form the subterranean plant, without leaves or roots. They lengthen little by little in the ground to a pretty good distance from the point of departure. Then, at a favorable moment, they produce little swellings which grow under ground, become mushrooms, and burst open their bed of earth to expand in the air. This structure explains to us why mushrooms grow in groups. Each group, with the mycelium that produces it, constitutes one and the same plant.” “I have seen groups of mushrooms in a perfect circle,” Claire remarked. “If the ground is of uniform character and nowhere hinders the propagation of the subterranean vegetable in one direction rather than in another, the mycelium spreads equally on all sides, and so produces circular groups of mushrooms, which the country people sometimes call witches’ circles.” “Why witches’ circles?” asked Jules. “The ignorant and superstitious think they see an effect of witchcraft in this curious circular arrangement, whereas it is but the natural result of the uniformly equal development of the subterranean plant.” “Then there are no witches?” said Emile. “No, my dear. There are rogues who abuse the credulity of others; there are simpletons disposed to listen to them; but no one has preternatural powers.” “Since a mushroom is the blossom of a subterranean plant, of the mycelium, as you call it, must it not have stamens, pistils, ovaries?” Jules inquired. “A mushroom is in its way the blossom of a kind of vegetable, but its structure has nothing in common with that of ordinary flowers. It is a structure of a special sort, very complicated, very curious, which I shall pass by in silence so as not to overcharge your memory. “The chief function of a flower, you know, is to produce seeds. Well, the mushroom too produces seeds, but so small, so different from others, that they have a special name,—spores. Spores are the seed of the mushroom, just as acorns are the seed of the oak. That is worthy of some further explanation. Mushrooms “The mushrooms most familiar to us are composed of a sort of dome supported by a stalk. This dome is called the cap. The under side of the cap takes various shapes, of which the principal are these: Sometimes it is composed of gills which radiate from the center to the border; sometimes it is pierced by an infinity of little holes, which are the orifices of as many tubes joined together in a common mass; sometimes it is covered with fine points like those of a cat’s tongue. “Mushrooms that have the under side of the cap formed of radiating gills are called agarics; those pierced with little holes, boleti; those covered with little points, hydnei. Agarics and boleti are the most common.” Here Uncle Paul took, one by one, the mushrooms they had gathered and showed his nephews the gills of the agarics, the holes of the boleti, and the points of the hydnei. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2018). The Story-book of Science. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56795/pg56795-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

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