When he reached the squirrel's house, however, nobody was at home. He knocked and knocked for a long time, and at last he walked in, but they were all gone out; he peeped therefore into the pantry to see if he could find the water; there was plenty of hazel-nuts and beech-nuts, heaps and heaps of them all laid up in store for winter, but no water; at length he saw the curled-up cherry-leaf, like a water-jug, standing at the squirrel's bed-side, but it was empty; there was not a single drop in it. "This is bad business!" said Cock-alu to himself, and turned to leave the house. At the squirrel's door he met a woodpecker. "Woodpecker," says he, "where is the squirrel gone to? I want to beg a drop of water from the silver-spring for my wife Hen-alie, who has got a bean in her throat!" "Lack-a-day!" said the woodpecker, "the old squirrel drank every drop, and drained the jug into the bargain; he lay sick in bed this morning, but there was such virtue in the water that he got well as soon as he drank it; and now he has taken his wife and the little ones out for an airing; they will not be back till night, I know. But if you will leave any message with me I will be sure and deliver it, for the squirrel and I are very neighborly." "Oh!" groaned Cock-alu; "but what would be the use of leaving a message if they have no water to give me!" With that he came down from the old pine tree where the squirrel lived, set out on his way home again, and came at length out of the Beech-wood, but it was then getting toward evening. He came to his own yard. There was the perch on which he and Hen-alie had so often sat, and there was the bean-straw, and there lay poor Hen-alie just as he had left her. "Hen-alie, my little wife," said he, crowing loudly as he came up, that he might put a cheerful face on the matter, "I have been very unlucky; I could not get you any water, but I have got something so nice for you! I have brought you a pair of silver-gauze stockings which the snail has sent you, and a pair of blue velvet garters to wear with them, which the ring-tail dove gave me!" "Thank you," said poor little Hen-alie, in a very weak voice, "but I wish you could have brought me some water, these things will do me no good!" "I could not bring you water, for the silver-spring is dry," said Cock-alu, feeling very unhappy, and yet wishing to excuse himself; "there's not a drop of water left in it!" "Then it's all over with me!" sighed poor little Hen-alie. "Don't be down-hearted, my little wife," said Cock-alu, trying to seem cheerful, "I will give you something better than all, I will give you the green-fire flash from the wild-cat's eye, which he gave me to wear on my tail-feathers. Look up, my poor little Hen-alie, and I'll give it all to you!" "Alas!" sighed poor little Hen-alie, "what good will they do me! Oh, that somebody only loved me well enough to have brought me one drop of silver-spring water!"