evenings, when the rains come and make me feel dull. Put him down here,
Margaret," said Aunt Emma to the maid, clearing a small table for the
cage. "Now, Olly, what do you think of my parrot?"

"Can it talk?" asked Olly, looking at it with very wide open eyes.

"It _can_ talk; whether it _will_ talk is quite another thing. Parrots
are contradictious birds. I feel very often as if I should like to beat
Polly, he's so provoking. Now, Polly, how are you to-day?"

"Polly's got a bad cold; fetch the doc--" said the bird at once, in such
a funny cracked voice, that it made Olly jump as if he had heard one of
the witches in Grimm's "Fairy Tales" talking.

"Come, Polly, that's very well behaved of you; but you mustn't leave off
in the middle, begin again. Olly, if you don't keep your fingers out of
the way Polly will snap them up for his dinner. Parrots like fingers
very much." Olly put his hands behind his back in a great hurry, and
mother came to stand behind him to keep him quiet. By this time,
however, Polly had begun to find out that there were some new people in
the room he didn't know, and for a long time Aunt Emma could not make
him talk at all. He would do nothing but put his head first on one side
and then on the other and make angry clicks with his beak.

"Come, Polly," said Aunt Emma, "what a cross parrot you are.
One--two--three--four. Now, Polly, count."

"Polly's got a bad cold, fetch the doc--" said Polly again while Aunt
Emma was speaking. "One--two--six--seven--eight--nine--two--_Quick_
march!"