The Opelousas courier., 1904-07-02
A CRAZY FLICKER
This One Took to Drilling into Iron
Pipes and Similar Strange Things

This One Took to Drilling into Iron
Pipes and Similar Strange Things
Mr.. Burroughs somewhere a salo
that if the flicker ever goes crazy ne
will go crazy boring holes. NOW L
never doubt anything Mr.. Burroughs
says about birds and beasts. and SO
for a good many years | have CONF
IDENTIFY expected that if ever found a
crazy flicker. | should find him. as
Mr.. Burroughs predicted, boring holeS.
Of course I never expected to n a
real crazy flicker, though | have long
been convinced that the whole hlcker
family is queer, and, indeed, somewhat
crack-brained.
But | have found one-a real crazy
insane flicker; and he was boring
holes-boring holes in tin rain pipes.
for he seemed to have been possessed.
He appeared last spring in Newton,
a beautiful subuSb Of Boston. 1t was
in the spring time. sand Highhole
OHighhole is one of his six common
New England names), inheriting a
delicately balanced mind. was drilling
into the rain pipe. Doubtless he
thought he was preparing a place for
a bride. Now the average young
flicker bride is about as spoon" and
as ready for love in a cottage" as any
bride; but l have yet to see one who
would sc to the length Of g. rain pipe.
No; the young flicker was mad. in
sane. He arrived in April, and an
]nounced himself by beating a thunder
Gus tattoo on a galvanized-iron chin
ney. The persons in the rooms below
jumped as if the roof were falling.
The p~assers-by on the street stopped
and gazed around in wonder. There
was nothing to be seen. Again the
rafting, ringing roll, and up out OF the
chimney popped Highhole, in an &C.
stasy over his new drum.
Then across the way, Or the top OF
another house he snied another. big
ger drum. and few over there. 1t
was a big v%entilator. He struck 1t.
To his apparent delig-& it doomed;
and catching his toes around an iron
hoop that encircled it he beat out a
roll that a drummer boy might have
enyied.
TIE mystery is that his bill did not
fly into sDlinters. But it didn't. The
sound, however. seemed to go to his
head, and he got crazier and crazier
over the galvanized iron until he dis
covered the rain pipe.
Up to this time the neighbors had
looked upon him as a youthful and de-
voted lover. who could not express
half Of his feeling upon an ordinary
rotten stub, and SO had taken to the
sounding hollow chimneys. They had
been amused. But suddenly all that
changed. They woke up to the fact
that the bird was a raving maniac,
for wlfat did they see one morning
but the flicker, high up under the cor
ner of a roof. clutching a small iron
bracket in the side of the house and
diligently trying to drill a hole through
the hard metal rain pipe.
He was hammering like a tinsmith,
and already had cut an opening half
as big as ones fist when discovered.
He had not tried to drill before; he
had been happy with the mere sound.
But something either in the size Of
shape or ring Of the pipe suggested
nest to his wild wits and right
through the pipe he had gone.
He was scared off finally, but not In
til he had let himself in and had had
a look down through the strange bot
tomless pit that he had opened.-Dal-
las Lore Sharp in ST. Nicholas.