_CHAPTER VII.—How the Parrot Helped._
But there was something more to be done than just to say, “Come, Baby!
come to mama,” to get Mary Ellen to creep again.
[Illustration: “COME GET THE BOO’FUL BIRD!”]
Mary Ellen’s papa, mama, and maternal grandmama all got down on the
floor at the opposite end of the room, and smiled and held out hands
and coaxed and chirruped; and Mary Ellen smiled in return and crowed and
jounced her little self up and down, and seemed ever so many times to
be on the very point of starting to go, but after all did not once make
any effort to get over on her little hands and knees and creep. It ended
every time in her sitting there and reaching for them to come over and
get her.
“She’ll never do it again,” said Mama Nan.
“Perhaps she hasn’t at all,” said Papa Dick. “She may just have rolled
there. Do you _know_ that she crept?”
“Oh! she crept,” said Mrs. Camp. “I examined her hands and knees.”
Now there was one thing Mary Ellen had always wanted more than anything
else and many times had reached up her little hands for—the red and green
parrot on the bronze perch. But though the bird had an equal curiosity
about the baby, Mama Nan would never let Dom Pedro be brought near her
child for fear that cruel hooked bill might bite!
But now, suddenly, she said, “See here, Dick! go get the parrot!”
When the bird was brought and began to shout, “Holloa, Young Woman!”
which was Papa Dick’s usual salutation to his daughter, Mary Ellen began
to jump herself up and down again and pat-a-cake in a perfect frenzy of
delight.
“Come get the boo’ful bird!” called Mama Nan. “Come to mama, baby, and
have the pretty bird!”
But Mary Ellen seemed to have lost all knowledge of her new art of
locomotion. She continued to jounce and crow, while her papa had to grasp
hard hold of the parrot to keep him from flying out of his hands.
[Illustration: MARY ELLEN AND DOM PEDRO.]
In the midst of the excitement Old Lady Lois came in. The reason of the
queer scene was explained to her. “Bless your hearts!” exclaimed she. She
crossed the floor, lifted the child, poised her a moment on her feet,
then gently laid her down, face forward; and at that second the parrot
flapping his wings in a new struggle to fly, Mary Ellen, with a great
crow set off on hands and knees to meet him.
Quite around the nursery she followed after her papa and the brilliant
bird. Then, as reward, she was taken up on her papa’s knee, and let
to lay her little hand upon the feathery green back and to stroke the
gorgeous green and red tail feathers. As for the parrot—of course he did
not bite! he only said, “And what d’ye think now, Young Woman?”
After this, Mary Ellen could creep; could creep with the greatest
velocity. But whenever she crept, and wherever, her journeys always ended
at the foot of the bronze parrot-perch, and Dom Pedro always leaned over
and spoke to her, and said as he peered down at the golden-haired little
girlie, “Holloa, Young Woman! holloa!”
_Ella Farman Pratt._
[Illustration]
“Berry flowers,
Cherry flowers,
We saw to-day,
All so white,
O, so white!
“But the berries,
And the cherries,”
Said little Fay,
“Will be red,
O, so red!”