caller.

"What's the joke?" inquired Jasper Jay.

Reddy could not speak. He was rocking back and forth upon a limb, choking
and gasping for breath. But he managed to point to the big tree where
Solomon Owl lived.

And when Jasper looked, and saw Solomon's great, round, pale, questioning
face, all tied up in a red nightcap, he began to scream.

They were no ordinary screams--those shrieks of Jasper Jay's. That
blue-coated rascal was the noisiest of all the feathered folk in Pleasant
Valley. And now he fairly made the woods echo with his hoarse cries.

"This is the funniest sight I've ever seen!" Jasper Jay said at last, to
nobody in particular. "I declare, there's a pair of them!"

At that, Reddy Woodpecker suddenly stopped laughing.

"A pair of what?" he asked.

"A pair of red-heads, of course!" Jasper Jay replied. "You've a red
cap--and so has he!" Jasper pointed at Solomon Owl (a very rude thing to
do!).

Then two things happened all at once. Solomon Owl snatched off his red
night-cap--which he had quite forgotten. And Reddy Woodpecker dashed at
Jasper Jay. He couldn't pull off _his_ red cap, for it grew right on his
head.

"So that's what you're laughing at, is it?" he cried angrily. And then
nobody laughed any more--that is, nobody but Solomon Owl.

Solomon was so pleased by the fight that followed between Jasper Jay and
Reddy Woodpecker that his deep, rumbling laughter could be heard for half
an hour--even if it _was_ midday. "_Wha-wha! Whoo-ah!_" The sound reached
the ears of Farmer Green, who was just crossing a neighboring field, on
his way home to dinner.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "I wonder what's happened to that old owl!
Something must have tickled him--for I never heard an owl laugh in broad
daylight before."

XXI
AT HOME IN THE HAYSTACK

After what happened when he came to his door without remembering to take
off his red nightcap, Solomon Owl hoped that Reddy Woodpecker would stop
teasing him.

But it was not so. Having once viewed Solomon's red cap, Reddy Woodpecker
wanted to see it some more. So he came again and again and knocked on
Solomon's door.

Solomon Owl, however, remembered each time to remove his nightcap before
sticking his head out. And it might be said that neither of them was
exactly pleased. For Reddy Woodpecker was disappointed; and Solomon Owl
was angry.

Not a day passed that Reddy Woodpecker didn't disturb Solomon's rest at
least a dozen times. Perh