Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/282

253 done without her consent, and as she repudiated all parvenu pretensions to the royal rank she maintained among us for thirteen years, the name of Eugenie was never used in addressing her. She entered our house, reigned in it, without a rival, during all its migrations, and left it at last—dies infelix!—acknowledging only her ancestral name of Polly.

Polly—though presented as a gift to the young miss alluded to, whose title to her ownership was never in dispute—became at once the pet of all the household. Her first greeting to her new friends was on the evening of her arrival, as we were all standing around her cage, by the simple and brief "Pretty Polly," spoken in pleasant tones, as if modestly introducing herself to our acquaintance. She would say nothing further; so, with special directions to the servants of safe-keeping from the cat and dog—directions we often laughed about afterward when we better knew her abilities of self-protection—she was left for the night.

The next morning gave promise of one of those unusual April days in London which, though the mercury in Fahrenheit never reaches 75°, the English people call "hot," and Polly was placed upon the leads in the rear of the first flight of stairs. All efforts to coax her into a talking mood had failed, and the three ladies had left her to her mumps, when a clear, mellow whistle, with a prolonged cadence that rose and fell like the reveille of a bugle, was heard through every part of the house, followed by a soliloquy, so rapid and yet human-like, that everybody ran to the windows. "Pretty Polly! Pretty Polly! Polly wants a shirt! Scratch her poll! Scratch her poll! Going, going, going, Polly going for twenty pounds! Going! Going! Twenty pounds! Twenty pounds! Mr. Price! Mr. Price! Who are you? Going for twenty pounds!" The last repeated in the prolonged, despairing notes of an auctioneer unwillingly sacrificing the lot he has for sale, and all spoken in such varieties of intonation and natural cadences as filled the listeners with wonder. While repeating these sentences with a volubility and distinctness that defies description, Polly stood balancing herself on one leg—"teetering " the children afterward called it—swaying her body back and forth, her head cocked on one side, her small, round eyes watching against the approach of an intruder, and her attitude and bearing full of independence and nonchalance. The shouts of delight that followed this first essay of her powers of utterance checked her at once, and we soon learned that it was only when left to herself, and that during the warmest days in the open air, that her loquaciousness was indulged to its vent. Then—exposed to the full rays of the sun, without company, better in the stillness of the country than in town, full fed, her feathers smooth and glossy, her morning exercise of climbing the rounds and bars of her cage and swinging upon her ring finished, her ablutions thoroughly performed, and her poll scratched by the one whom she had chosen to consider her best friend—this last a favor she never failed to ask upon Mrs. G.'s approach, "scratch her poll, scratch her poll, pretty, pretty Polly, scratch her poll!"—would she pour forth her melody of language. Beginning with a sharp rebuking tone to "Mr. Price," followed by a beseeching request, "Polly wants her beer," she would call the cat "Pussy! poor pussy! mew! mew! poor pussy!" whistle to the dog, ask of the onlookers who stood below, wondering, "Who, who are you?" and then, composing herself to the dignity of surging to and fro, repeat, with infinite variety, her rich vocabulary.

In two respects she was remarkable; she never ceased to learn new words, old as she was, and she never forgot what she had already learned. But you could not teach her; she taught herself. Unceasing efforts to make her say