30 Nature Myths and Stories.

At last she tooka 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 un-
happy.

“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 stillseemed 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.