an with slightly curtailed
wing-sheaths and a breastplate that looked like a head too large
for its body, Maya thought he was almost comical; but she knew
he was a dangerous beetle who could do immense harm to the mighty
trees of the forest, and if his tribe attacked a tree in numbers
then the green needles were doomed, the tree would turn sear and
die. It was utterly without defenses against the little marauders
who destroyed the bark and the sap-wood. And the sap-wood is
necessary to the life of a tree because it carries the sap up to
the very tips of the branches. There were stories of how whole
forests had fallen victims to the race of boring-beetles. Maya
looked at Fridolin reflectively; she was awed into solemnity at
the thought of the great power these little creatures possessed
and of how important they could become.

Fridolin sighed and said in a worried tone:

"Ah, life would be beautiful if there were no woodpeckers."

Maya nodded.

"Yes, indeed, you're right. The woodpecker gobbles up every
insect he sees."

"If it were only that," observed Fridolin, "if it were only that
he got the careless people who fool around on the outside, on
the bark, I'd say, 'Very well, a woodpecker must live too.' But
it seems all wrong that the bird should follow us right into our
corridors into the remotest corners of our homes."

"But he can't. He's too big, isn't he?"

Fridolin looked at Maya with an air of grave importance, lifting
his brows and shaking his head two or three times. It seemed to
please him that he knew something she didn't know.

"Too big? What difference does his size make? No, my dear, it's
not his size we are afraid of; it's his tongue."

Maya made big eyes.

Fridolin told her about the woodpecker's tongue: that it was
long and thin, and round as a worm, and barbed and sticky.

"He can stretch his tongue out ten times my length," cried the
bark-beetle, flourishing his arm. "You think: 'now--now he has
reached the limit, he can't make it the tiniest bit longer.' But
no, he goes on stretching and stretching it. He pokes it deep
into all the cracks and crevices of the bark, on the chance that
he'll find somebody sitting there. He even pushes it into our
passageways--actually, into our corridors and chambers. Things
stick to it, and that's the way he pulls us out of our homes."

"I am not a coward," said Maya, "I don't think I am, but what
you say makes me creepy."

"Oh, _you're_ all right,"