rther end of the pond a cedar
bush interposed a barrier to the sight and suggested mysterious things
beyond. Back of the cedar barrier a woods of great trees, spruce,
balsam, with tall elms and maples on the higher ground beyond, offered
deeper mysteries and delights unutterable. They knew well the cedar
swamp and the woods beyond. Partridges drummed there, rabbits darted
along their beaten runways, and Joe had seen a woodcock, that shyest of
all shy birds, disappear in glancing, shadowy flight, a ghostly, silent
denizen of the ghostly, silent spaces of the forest. Even as they
gazed upon that inviting line of woods, the boys could see and hear the
bluejays flash in swift flight from tree to tree and scream their joy of
rage and love. From the farther side of the pond two boys put out in a
flat-bottomed boat.

"There's big Ben and Mop," cried Larry eagerly. "Hello, Ben," he called
across the pond. "Goin' to school?"

"Yap," cried Mop, so denominated from the quantity and cut of the hair
that crowned his head. Ben was at the oars which creaked and thumped
between the pins, but were steadily driving the snub-nosed craft on its
toilsome way past the boys.

"Hello, Ben," cried Larry. "Take us in too."

"All right," said Ben, heading the boat for the bank. "Let me take an
oar, Ben," said Larry, whose experience upon the world of waters was not
any too wide.

"Here, where you goin'," cried Mop, as the boat slowly but surely
pointed toward the cedars. "You stop pulling, Ben. Now, Larry, pull
around again. There now, she's right. Pull, Ben." But Ben sat rigid with
his eyes intent upon the cedars.

"What's the matter, Ben?" said Larry. Still Ben sat with fixed gaze.

"By gum, he's in, boys," said Ben in a low voice. "I thought he had his
nest in one of them stubs."

"What is it--in what stub?" inquired Larry, his voice shrill with
excitement.

"That big middle stub, there," said Ben. "It's a woodpecker. Say, let's
pull down and see it." Under Mop's direction the old scow gradually made
its way toward the big stub.

They explored the stub, finding in it a hole and in the hole a nest, the
mother and father woodpeckers meanwhile flying in wild agitation from
stub to stub and protesting with shrill cries against the intruders.
Then they each must climb up and feel the eggs lying soft and snug in
their comfy cavity. After that they all must discuss the probable time
of hatching, the likelihood of there being other nests