- Why it's a perfectly
elegant hole!' So he flew down and got that acorn,
and fetched it up
And dropped it in, and was just tilting
his head back, with the heavenliest smile on his face,
when all of a sudden he was paralyzed into a listening
attitude and that smile faded gradually out of his
countenance like breath off'n a razor, and the queerest
look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I
didn't hear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again,
and took a long look; raised up and shook his head;
stepped around to the other side of the hole and took
another look from that side; shook his head again.
He studied a while, then he just went into the Details
- walked round and round the hole and spied into it from every
point of the compass. No use. Now he took a thinking
attitude on the comb of the roof and scratched the back
of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally says,
'Well, it's too many for ME, that's certain; must be
a mighty long hole; however, I ain't got no time to fool
around here, I got to "tend to business"; I reckon it's
all right - chance it, anyway.'
"So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped
it in, and tried to flirt his eye to the hole quick
enough to see what become of it, but he was too late.
He held his eye there as much as a minute; then he raised
up and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem
to understand this thing, no way; however, I'll tackle
her again.' He fetched another acorn, and done his level
best to see what become of it, but he couldn't. He says,
'Well, I never struck no such a hole as this before;
I'm of the opinion it's a totally new kind of a hole.'
Then he begun to get mad. He held in for a spell,
walking up and down the comb of the roof and shaking
his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings got
the upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose
and cussed himself black in the face. I never see a bird
take on so about a little thing. When he got through he
walks to the hole and looks in again for half a minute;
then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole,
and a mighty singular hole altogether - but I've started
in to fill you, and I'm damned if I DON'T fill you, if it
takes a hundred years!'
"And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work
so since you was born. He laid into his work like a nigger,
and the way he hove acorns into that hole for about
two hours and a half was one of the most exciting and
astonishing spectacles I ever struck.
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