The very first opportunity, my uncle took me up with him to the
lumber-room, an attic of which my aunt kept the key; and here, after
quite a hunt amongst old portmanteaux, broken chairs, dusty tables,
bird-cages, wrecked kennels, cornice-poles, black-looking pictures, and
dozens of other odds and ends, we came in a dark corner upon the remains
of one of my aunt's earliest pets. It was the stuffed figure of a grey
parrot that had once stood beneath a glass shade, but the shade was
broken, and poor Polly, who looked as if she had been moulting ever
since she had been fixed upon her present perch, had her head partly
torn from her shoulders.
"Here she is," said my uncle. "Poor old Polly! What a bird she was to
screech! She never liked me, Nat, but used to call me _wretch_, as
plain as you could say it yourself. It was very wicked of me, I dare
say, Nat, but I was so glad when she died, and your aunt was so sorry
that she cried off and on for a week."
"But she never was a pretty bird, uncle," I said, holding the stuffed
creature to the light.
"No, my boy, never, and she used to pull off her feathers when she was
in a passion, and call people _wretch_. She bit your aunt's nose once.
But do you think it will do?"
"Oh yes, uncle," I said; "but may I pull it to pieces?"
"Well, yes, my boy, I think so," he said dreamily. "You couldn't spoil
it, could you?"
"Why, it is spoiled already, Uncle Joe," I said.
"Yes, my boy, so it is; quite spoiled. I think I'll risk it, Nat."
"But if aunt would be very cross, uncle, hadn't I better leave it?" I
said.
"If you didn't take it, Nat, she would never see it again, and it would
lie here and moulder away. I think you had better take it, my boy."
I was so eager to begin that I hesitated no more, but took the bird out
into the tool-house, where I could make what aunt called "a mess"
without being scolded, and uncle put on his smoking-cap, lit his pipe,
and brought a high stool to sit upon and watch me make my first attempt
at mastering a mystery.
The first thing was to take Polly off her perch, which was a piece of
twig covered with moss, that had once been glued on, but now came away
in my hands, and I found that the bird had been kept upright by means of
wires that ran down her legs and were wound about the twig.
Uncle smoked away as solemnly as could be, while I went on, and he
seemed to be admiring my earnestness.
"There's wire up the legs, uncle," I cried, as I felt about the bird.
"Oh! is there?" he said, condescendingly.
"Yes, uncle, and two more pieces in the wings."
"You don't say so, Nat!"
"Yes, uncle, and another bit runs right through the body from the head
to the tail; and--yes--no--yes--no--ah, I've found out how it is that
the tail is spread."
"Have you, Nat?" he cried, letting his pipe out, he was so full of
interest.
"Yes, uncle; there's a thin wire threaded through all the tail feathers,
just as if they were beads."
"Why, what a boy you are!" he cried, wonderingly.
"Oh, it's easy enough to find that out, uncle," I said, colouring. "Now
let's see what's inside."
"Think there's anything inside, Natty, my boy?"
"Oh yes, uncle," I said; "it's full of something. Why, it's tow."
"Toe, my boy!" he said seriously, "parrot's toe?"
"T-o-w. Tow, uncle, what they use to clean the lamps. I can stuff a
bird, uncle, I know."
"Think you can, Natty?"
"Yes, to be sure," I said confidently. "Why, look here, it's easy to
make a ball of tow the same shape as an egg for the body, and then to
push wires through the body, and wings, and legs; no, stop a moment,
they seem to be fastened in. Yes, so they are, but I know I can do it."
Uncle Joe held his pipe in his mouth with his teeth and rubbed his hands
with satisfaction, for he was as pleased with my imagined success as I
was, and as he looked on I pulled out the stuffing from the skin,
placing the wings here, the legs there, and the tail before me, while
the head with its white-irised glass eye was stuck upon a nail in the
wall just over the bench.
"I feel as sure as can be, uncle, that I could stuff one."
"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "_Wretch! wretch! wretch_! That's what Polly
would say if she could speak. See how you've pulled her to pieces."
I looked up as he spoke, and there was the head with its queer glass
eyes seeming to stare hard at me, and at the mess of skin and feathers
on the bench.
"Well, I have pulled her to pieces, haven't I, uncle?" I said.
"That you have, my boy," he said, chuckling, as if he thought it very
good fun.
"But I have learned how to stuff a bird, uncle," I said triumphantly.
"And are you going to stuff Polly again?" he asked, gazing at the ragged
feathers and skin.