Chapter 22

IT WAS SOLOMON'S FAULT



Reddy Woodpecker had a very good reason for not laughing when he met Solomon Owl. Of course, he knew nothing whatever of Solomon's new hiding place in the haystack. And that very morning Reddy had invited a party of friends to go with him to the hemlock grove where Solomon Owl had always lived, "to have some fun," as Reddy had explained.

For a long time he had knocked and hammered and pounded at Solomon Owl's door. But for once Solomon's great pale face did not appear.

"Where's the fun?" Reddy's friends had wanted to know, after they had waited until they were impatient.

And Reddy Woodpecker could only shake his head and say:

"I can't understand it! It's never happened like this before. I'm afraid Solomon Owl has lost his hearing."

Reddy Woodpecker's friends were no more polite than he. And they began to jeer at him.

"You didn't hammer loud enough," one of them told him.

So he set to work again and rapped and rapped until his head felt as if it would fly off, and his neck began to ache.

Still, Solomon Owl did not appear. And the party broke up in something very like a quarrel. For Reddy Woodpecker lost his temper when his friends teased him; and a good many unpleasant remarks passed back and forth.

Somehow, Reddy felt that it was all Solomon Owl's fault, because he hadn't come to the door.

Of course, Reddy had no means of knowing that all that time Solomon Owl was sleeping peacefully in Farmer Green's haystack in the meadow, a quarter of a mile away.

It was a good joke on Reddy Woodpecker. And though no one had told Solomon Owl about it, he was not so stupid that he couldn't guess at least a little that had happened.

Solomon Owl continued to have a very pleasant time living in the meadow. Since there were many mice right close at hand, little by little he visited the woods less and less. And there came a time at last when he hardly left the meadow at all.

Not flying any more than he could help, and eating too much, and sleeping very soundly each day, he grew stouter than ever, until his friends hardly knew him when they saw him.

"Solomon Owl is a sight--he's so fat!" people began to say.

But his size never worried Solomon Owl in the least. When he became too big for his doorway in the haystack, it was a simple matter to make the opening larger--much simpler than it would have been to make himself smaller. And that was another reason why he was delighted with his new home.

At last, however, something happened to put an end to his lazy way of living. One day the sound of men's voices awakened him, when he was having a good nap in the haystack. And he felt his bedroom quiver as if an earthquake had shaken it.

Scrambling to his doorway and peeping slyly out,