Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/126

 114 The boys carried him into a very elegant room. A stout smiling lady received them. But she was not at all gratified to see the common field bird, as she called the lark, coming in too. Only for that day she would consent to it; but they must put the bird in the empty cage which stood by the window.

'Perhaps that will please Polly,' she added, and laughed at a great parrot swinging himself proudly in his ring in the handsome brass cage.

'It's Polly's birthday,' she said, fatuously, 'so the little field bird shall congratulate him.'

Polly did not answer a single word; he only swung proudly to and fro. But a pretty canary bird, who had been brought here last summer out of his warm fragrant fatherland, began to sing loudly.

'Screamer!' said the lady; and she threw a white handkerchief over the cage.

'Piep! piep!' sighed he; 'here's a terrible snowstorm.' And thus sighing, he was silent.

The copying clerk, or, as the lady called him, the field bird, was placed in a little cage close to the canary, and not far from the parrot. The only human words which Polly could say, and which often sounded very comically, were, Come, let's be men now! Everything else that he screamed out was just as unintelligible as the song of the canary bird, except for the copying clerk, who was now also a bird, and who understood his comrades very well.

'I flew under the green palm tree and the blossoming almond tree!' sang the canary. I flew with my brothers and sisters over the beautiful flowers and over the bright sea. where the plants waved in the depths. I also saw many beautiful parrots, who told the merriest stories.'

'Those were wild birds,' replied the parrot. 'They had no education. Let us be men now! Why don't you laugh? If the lady and all the strangers could laugh at it, so can you. It is a great fault to have no taste for what is humorous. No, let us be men now.'

'Do you remember the pretty girls who danced under the tents spread out beneath the blooming trees? Do you remember the sweet fruits and the cooling juice in the wild plants?'