I want to tell you of a parrot we used to have. Of course her name
was Polly. She would sit on the fence, and if she saw any of the
children playing in the water, she would call to them: "Get out of
that water! Didn't I tell you not to play in that water? What's the
matter with you, Polly? Are you crazy? Ha! take care of yourself
now!" Then she would scream and flap her wings. At breakfast she
would march into the dining-room, and walking around my chair,
would say: "Come along, Harry--come along, get coffee. Did you have
any coffee this morning, Polly? Ha! bad people in this house didn't
give poor little Polly any coffee this morning." She would let me
pull her tail; but if others attempted to do it, she would fly at
them and bite them. One day she cut all the buttons off a pair of
shoes, and when discovered she screamed, "What you want, ma'am?
what you come here for?" She was very fond of swinging on the
clothes-line, and would begin to scold herself, saying: "What are
you doing on that line, Polly? Don't you hear me, Polly--don't you
hear me talking to you? Get off that line this minute." We had an
old colored nurse--Auntie we called her--who used to scold Polly in
this way, and who would say, when she heard the parrot mocking her,
that Polly was taking all the text off her. She could sing "Shoo
Fly," and say many other funny things. We think HARPER'S YOUNG
PEOPLE is just splendid.