Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/284

260 after eyeing him for a time, gave vent to her indignation in a quick, angry "George!" The man started as if shot, and turning pale, said, "Why, that's my name! She's a devil!" and was with difficulty persuaded to complete his work.

Two foppish young men were endeavoring one Sunday afternoon, from a neighboring window, to attract her attention. "Say something, Polly! Sell at auction, Polly! Do talk!" Polly, who was apparently interested in some stable talk overheard among the ostlers, and always manifested contempt for fine outsides, for a long time paid no attention to their requests, until, as if wearied by their importunity, she turned upon them with, "Who are you?" and immediately resumed her attitude of listening, refusing to speak another word.

The name of her mistress she never called aloud, and indeed, never spoke, except during the half hour they spent together daily. Then, courting every demonstration of fondness which hand, or voice, or look could give, bending her head to be scratched, stretching her back to be smoothed, kissing, shaking hands, giving back and receiving again her lump of sugar, and rollicking in the overflow of gladness on swing and perch and bar, sometimes rattling off words too rapid for full pronunciation, as "Pretty Polly, pret, pret, pret. Poll, Polly wants, pretty Poll," or subsiding into a gentler mood, accompanied by a "Hush, hush," lengthening the aspirate like a mother quieting her child, sh, 'sh," and breathing the low cooing she had caught from the doves, she would begin, "Mary! Mary! Pretty Mary! May, May, May!" with a continually decreasing volume of sound, till it reached a confidential whisper. She made friends of others, and perhaps was as pleased with their attentions, but the name of Mary she never uttered except to her mistress.

More remarkable in some respects than her power of speech was her whistle. It was a full, loud, clear note, of great power, as melodious as that of the piping bullfinch, and various as the mocking-bird's. Usually whistling in scales, with a compass of more than two octaves, she would run up and down her semi-wild, semi-cultivated gamut by the hour, introducing now and then, as variations, snatches caught from the violin or overheard in the street. A gentleman calling to introduce a friend one evening had passed her cage on the landing, when she gave one of her wild scales, the echo of which rang through the house. Thinking the whistle to have proceeded from his companion who was following him, the gentleman turned angrily around, saying, " D—n it. Smith, do you know where you are?"

Though Polly's words and phrases were imitative, they were, beyond doubt, often associated with ideas. If the person fetching her food were stopped on the way, she would cry, "Come along, come along!" If one she liked (never to one she disliked) approached her cage, putting her head through the bars, she asked, "Scratch her poll," repeating the request till granted; and to boys, who in the country stood wondering at her through the palings, she invariably cried, "Who are you?" To Hexior, the dog succeeding Flora, but with whom she formed no friendship, she barked; to the cat, as also to a muff or other furs, she either mewed or called "puss;" to a stranger she addressed "Mr. Price;" to two ladies who were accustomed to stand admiring her, "pretty, pretty Polly," dwelling on the adjective with a voice of feminine softness; and only when alone, in the joy of a hot midsummer's sun, selling herself to some mythical buyer, "going, going, going, Polly going for twenty pounds!"

It was charged that she was treacherous, but only by those who had incurred