Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 4.djvu/138

 very tame and learned to love and trust with the sweetest confidence. A jollier sparrow never hopped; and after a good lunch with Bertie, both drinking out of one mug, both pecking at the same apple, and sharing the same cake, Cocky was ready for play. He would hide somewhere and Bertie would hunt for him, guided now and then by a faint "Tweet" till the little gray bunch was found in some sly nook and came bouncing out with a whisk and a chirp.

When Bertie sat at lessons, Cocky would roost on his shoulder, hop over the open page with his head on one side as if reading it, peer into the inkstand inquisitively, or settle himself among the flowers that stood in the middle of the table, like a little teacher ready to hear the lessons when they were learned.

And sometimes when Bertie lay asleep, tired with books or play, Cocky would circle round him with soft flight, and perch on his pillow, waiting silently till his playmate woke, "like an angel guarding the dear in his sleep," as old nurse said, watching the pretty sight.

Professor Parpatharges Patterson was right also; for he apparently did try to understand "bird-talk,"