Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 3.djvu/196

 for my pains is a pettish, 'Do stop screaming, you noisy bird,' and a cloth over the cage to keep me quiet. It's very hard;" and Goldy shook a little tear out of his round black eye. "I love the sun, and air, and blithe company so dearly, and she won't let me have any of them.

"She promised to take care of me, but she doesn't, and I go hungry, thirsty, and untidy, while she mopes and wishes she had something pleasant to do.

"To-day, now, I've had neither seed nor water; no sniff of fresh air, no fly about the room, not a bit of apple, not a kind word or look, but have sat in the dark, with the cover over my cage, because I tried to tell how glad I was to see the sun, in spite of my hunger and thirst, loneliness and homesickness. Ah, well! some day she may be kinder to me, and then I'll show her what a loving friend I can be."

And with a last peck at the husks that lay in the cage, a last sad look about his gloomy house, Goldy put his head under his wing and tried to forget his troubles in sleep.

Fanny was going to start up and feed and pet him, with remorseful tenderness, when a new voice sounded behind her, and she waited to listen.