Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/68

Rh The boy said he had been careful to buy a young one that could not speak, for he knew the Morris boys would not want one chattering foreign gibberish, nor yet one that would swear. He had kept her in his bunk in the ship, and had spent all his leisure time in teaching her to talk. Then he looked at her anxiously, and said, "Show off now, can't ye?"

I didn't know what he meant by all this, until afterward. I had never heard of such a thing as birds talking. I stood on the table staring hard at her, and she stared hard at me. I was just thinking that I would not like to have her sharp little beak fastened in my skin, when I heard some one say, "Beautiful Joe." The voice seemed to come from the room, but I knew all the voices there, and this was one I had never heard before, so I thought I must be mistaken, and it was some one in the hall. I struggled to get away from Jack to run and see who it was. But he held me fast, and laughed with all his might. I looked at the other boys aud they were laughing too. Presently, I heard again, "Beau-ti-ful Joe, Beau-ti-ful Joe." The sound was close by, and yet it did not come from the cabin boy, for he was all doubled up laughing, his face as red as a beet.

"It's the parrot, Joe," cried Ned. "Look at her, you gaby." I did look at her, and with her head on one side, and the sauciest air in the world, she was saying: "Beau-ti-ful Joe, Beau-ti-ful Joe!"

I had never heard a bird talk before, and I felt so sheepish that I tried to get down and hide myself under the table. Then she began to laugh at me. "Ha, ha, ha, good dog—sic 'em, boy. Rats, rats! Beau-ti-ful Joe, Beau-ti-ful Joe," she cried, rattling off the words as fast as she could.