"Closer still!" growled the jaguar.
And the parrot went down still another branch. But just then the jaguar
leaped high in the air--oh, twice, three times his own length, as high
as a house perhaps, and barely managed to reach Pedrito with the tips of
his claws. He did not succeed in catching the bird but he did tear out
every single feather in Pedrito's tail.
"There!" said the jaguar, "go and get your bread-and-milk! Nice papa!
Nice papa! Lucky for you I didn't get my paws on you!"
Terrified and smarting from pain, the parrot took to his wings. He could
not fly very well, however; for birds without a tail are much like ships
without their rudders: they cannot keep to one direction. He made the
most alarming zigzags this way and that, to the right and to the left,
and up and down. All the birds who met him thought surely he had gone
crazy; and took good care to keep out of his way.
However, he got home again at last, and the people were having tea in
the dining room. But the first thing that Pedrito did was to go and look
at himself in the mirror. Poor, poor Pedrito! He was the ugliest, most
ridiculous bird on earth! Not a feather to his tail! His coat of down
all ruffled and bleeding! Shivering with chills of fright all over! How
could any self-respecting bird appear in society in such disarray?
Though he would have given almost anything in the world for his usual
bread-and-milk that day, he flew off to a hollow eucalyptus tree he knew
about, crawled in through a hole, and nestled down in the dark, still
shivering with cold and drooping his head and wings in shame.
In the dining room, meantime, everybody was wondering where the parrot
was. "Pedrito! Pedrito!" the children came calling to the door.
"Pedrito! Papa, Pedrito. Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito!"
But Pedrito did not say a word. Pedrito did not stir. He just sat there
in his hole, sullen, gloomy, and disconsolate. The children looked for
him everywhere, but he did not appear. Everybody thought he had gotten
lost, perhaps, or that some cat had eaten him; and the little ones began
to cry.
So the days went by. And every day, at tea-time, the farmer's family
remembered Pedrito and how he used to come and have tea with them. Poor
Pedrito! Pedrito was dead! No one would ever see Pedrito again!
But Pedrito was not dead at all. He was just a proud bird; and would
have been ashamed to let anybody see him without his tail. He waited in
his hole till everybody went to bed; then he would come out, get
something to eat, and return to his hiding place again. Each morning,
just after daylight, and before anybody was up, he would go into the
kitchen and look at himself in the mirror, getting more and more
bad-tempered meanwhile because his feathers grew so slowly.
Until one afternoon, when the family had gathered in the dining room for
tea as usual, who should come into the room but Pedrito! He walked in
just as though nothing at all had happened, perched for a moment on a
chair back, and then climbed up the tablecloth to get his
bread-and-milk. The people just laughed and wept for joy, and clapped
their hands especially to see what pretty feathers the bird had.
"Pedrito! Why Pedrito! Where in the world have you been? What happened
to you? And what pretty, pretty feathers!"
You see, they did not know that they were new feathers; and Pedrito, for
his part, said not a word. He was not going to tell them anything about
it. He just ate one piece of bread-and-milk after another. "Papa,
Pedrito! Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito!" Of course, he said a few things
like that. But otherwise, not a word.
That was why the farmer was very much surprised the next day when
Pedrito flew down out of a tree top and alighted on his shoulder,
chattering and chattering as though he had something very exciting on
his mind. In two minutes, Pedrito told him all about it--how, in his joy
at the nice weather, he had flown down to the Parana; how he had invited
the jaguar to tea; and how the jaguar had deceived him and left his tail
without a feather. "Without a feather, a single blessed feather!" the
parrot repeated, in rage at such an indignity. And he ended by asking
the farmer to go and shoot that jaguar.
It happened that they needed a new mat for the fireplace in the dining
room, and the farmer was very glad to hear there was a jaguar in the
neighborhood. He went into the house to get his gun, and then set out
with Pedrito toward the river. They agreed that when Pedrito saw the
jaguar he would begin to scream to attract the beast's attention. In
that way the man could come up close and get a good shot with his gun.
And that is just what happened. Pedrito flew up to a tree top and began
to talk as noisily as he could, meanwhile looking in all directions to
see if the jaguar were about. Soon he heard some branches crackling
under the tree on the ground; and peering down he saw the two green
lights fixed upon him. "Nice day!" he began. "Nice papa! Papa for
Pedrito! Your paw, Pedrito!"
The jaguar was very cross to see that this same parrot had come around
again and with prettier feathers than before. "You will not get away
this time!" he growled to himself, glaring up at Pedrito more fiercely
than before.
"Closer! Closer! I'm deaf! I can't hear what you say!"
And Pedrito, as he had done the other time, came down first one branch
and then another, talking all the time at the top of his voice:
"Papa for Pedrito! Nice papa! At the foot of this tree! Your paw,
Pedrito! At the foot of this tree!"
The jaguar grew suspicious at these new words, and, rising part way on
his hind legs, he growled:
"Who is that you are talking to? Why do you say I am at the foot of this
tree!"
"Good day, Pedrito! Papa, papa for Pedrito!" answered the parrot; and he
came down one more branch, and still another.
"Closer, closer!" growled the jaguar.
Pedrito could see that the farmer was stealing up very stealthily with
his gun. And he was glad of that, for one more branch and he would be
almost in the jaguar's claws.
"Papa, papa for Pedrito! Nice papa! Are you almost ready?" he called.
"Closer, closer," growled the jaguar, getting ready to spring.
"Your paw, Pedrito! He's ready to jump! Papa, Pedrito!"
And the jaguar, in fact, leaped into the air. But this time Pedrito was
ready for him. He took lightly to his wings and flew up to the tree top
far out of reach of the terrible claws. The farmer, meanwhile, had been
taking careful aim; and just as the jaguar reached the ground, there was
a loud report. Nine balls of lead as large as peas entered the heart of
the jaguar, who gave one great roar and fell over dead.
Pedrito was chattering about in great glee; because now he could fly
around in the forest without fear of being eaten; and his tail feathers
would never be torn out again. The farmer, too, was happy; because a
jaguar is very hard to find anyway; and the skin of this one made a very
beautiful rug indeed.
When they got back home again, everybody learned why Pedrito had been
away so long, and how he had hidden in the hollow tree to grow his
feathers back again. And the children were very proud that their pet had
trapped the jaguar so cleverly.
Thereafter there was a happy life in the farmer's home for a long, long
time. But the parrot never forgot what the jaguar had tried to do to
him. In the afternoon when tea was being served in the dining room, he
would go over to the skin lying in front of the fireplace and invite the
jaguar to have bread-and-milk with him: "Papa, nice papa! Papa for
Pedrito! Papa for jaguar? Nice papa!"
And when everybody laughed, Pedrito would laugh too.