RED LEAF DAYS 183 



them ; how else do the bushes get planted so 

 universally ? But at the time of our visit 

 there was a sufficiency of better fare. Rum 

 cherries were still plentiful, and birds, like 

 boys in an apple orchard, and like sensible 

 people anywhere, take the best first. 



It surprised me, while I was here some 

 years ago, to discover how fond woodpeckers 

 of all kinds are of rum cherries. Even the 

 pileated could not keep away from the trees, 

 but came close about the house to frequent 

 them. One unfortunate fellow, I regret to 

 say, came once too often. The sapsuckers, 

 it was noticed, went about the business after 

 a method of their own. Each cherry was 

 carried to the trunk of a tree or to a tele- 

 graph pole, where it was wedged into a 

 crevice, and eaten with all the regular wood- 

 peckerish attitudes and motions. Doubtless 

 it tasted better so. And the bird might 

 well enough have said that he was behaving 

 no differently from human beings, who for 

 the most part do not swallow fruit under 

 the branches, but take it indoors and feast 

 upon it at leisure, and with something like 

 ceremony. The trunk of a tree is a wood- 

 pecker's table. 



