Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/162

144 see blue sky, with silver-green willow leaves waving before it, high above her. Little ants were running up and down the willow tree walls. She sat up and began to feel very hungry.

Suddenly there was a whirr of wings, and a spotted woodpecker with a scarlet head flew down inside the tree. He looked very astonished.

“Hallo!” he exclaimed. “Where did you come from?”

“I come from Tubbyland,” said Tubby instantly, “and I would like some breakfast.”

“Tubbyland—” said the woodpecker, clinging upside-down to the wall in a way that made Tubby dizzy to look at. “Hm. I don’t know where that is! And as for breakfast, I’ve enough to do getting that for my own family, but if there’s any left over you shall have it.”

He flew off, as good as his word, and in a few minutes he was back again but the breakfast he brought was not at all what Tubby had hoped for. It was a great fat worm, squirmy and unpleasant, and he dropped it so nearly into Tubby’s mouth, as she sat looking up, that she gave a little scream. He was off again instantly, and to hide her disappointment, and not to hurt the woodpecker’s feelings, she buried the worm as quickly as she could under the loose earth on the floor, where she would not be obliged to see it.

She had only just finished, and was scraping the earth together again, when—bang—something hit her right on the nose. This time it was a nut, neatly cracked, so that