The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-06-03
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 has said
that if the flicker ever goes crazy he
will go crazy boring holes. Now
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
crazy flicker. l should find him. as
Mr.. Burroughs predicted, boring holes.
Of course l never expected to find
real crazy flicker, though | have long
been convinced that the whole flicker
family is queer, and, indeed, somewhat
crack-brained
But l 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 suburb of Boston. 1t was
in the spring time. and Highhole
(Highhole is one of his six common
New England names). inheriting
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 cottage" as any
bride; but l have yet to see one who
would go to the length of rain pipe.
No; the young flicker was mad. in
sane. He arrived in April, and an
nounced himself by beating thunder
Gus tattoo on a galvanized-iron chin
ney. The persons in the rooms below
jumped as if the roof were falling.
The passers-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, on the top OF
another house he sDied another. big
ger drum. and flew over there. 1t
was a big ventilator. He struck It..
To his apparent delight it doomed;
and catching his toes around an iron
hoop that encircled it he beat out
roll that a drummer boy might have
envied
The mystery is that his bill did not
fly into splinters. But it didn't. The
sound, however. seemed to go to his
head, and he got crazier and crazler
over the galvanized iron until he dis
covered the rain pipe.
Up to this time the neighbors had
looked upon him as 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 what 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 hole through
| the hard metal rain pipe.
He was hammering like 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 I'M
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.
Eaa4L In Ihair GEAra anhe