Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/274

 The boys took him into a most elegant room, where they were received by a stout, smiling lady. But she was not very well pleased that a common field-bird, as she termed the lark, should be introduced into the house. She would only put up with it just for this one day, provided, however, the bird were placed in the empty cage near the window. " It will perhaps please Poll," added she, smiling at a large, green parrot, who was rocking himself very majestically on his swinging perch, in the pretty brass-wired cage. "It is Poll's birthday," said she tenderly, "and therefore the field-bird begs to offer his congratulations."

Poll did not answer a word, but continued see-sawing in dignified silence; on the other hand a pretty canary-bird that had been brought last summer from the sunny, fragrant land of his birth, began singing loudly.

"You little screamer!" said the lady, throwing a white handkerchief over the cage.

"Tweat! tweat!" sighed he, "what a dreadful snow-storm!" And so saying he was silent.

The clerk, or, as the lady would have called him, the field-bird, was placed in a little cage, close to the canary-bird, and not far from the parrot. The only human sentence that Poll could chatter, and which sometimes made a very droll effect, was: "Now, let us be men." All the rest of the noise he screamed was just as unintelligible as the twittering of the canary-bird; but not to the clerk, who was now himself a bird, and consequently understood his comrades perfectly.

"I used to fly beneath green palm-trees and blooming almond-trees," sang the canary-bird. "I used to fly with my brothers and sisters over lovely flowers, and across the limpid surface of the lake, where plants were waving to and fro in the waters below. I used to see many pretty parrots, who told the most entertaining stories—and they knew so many stories, and such long ones!"

"Those were wild birds," returned the parrot, "who were wholly uneducated. Now, let us be men! Why do you not laugh? Since the lady and all her visitors laugh at this, you surely might. It is a great defect not to be able to appreciate what is witty. Now, let us be men!"

"Do you remember the pretty girls who used to dance beneath the tent, beside the trees in full blossom? Do you remember the delicious fruit, and the cooling sap of the wild herbs?"

"Oh yes," said the parrot, "but I'm much better off here. I am well fed, and treated with distinction. I know that I am intellectual, and I desire nothing better. Now, let us be men! You have what is called a poetical soul. I have solid acquirements and wit, while you have genius, but no discretion. You raise your natural tones to so high a pitch that you get covered over. That is never done to me—oh, dear me, no! for I cost them a great deal more. I overawe them with my beak, and can utter witty sayings. Now, let us be men!"

"O my warm and blooming country!" sang the canary-bird, "I will sing your dark green trees, and your calm gulf, where the boughs kiss the clear surface of the water—and I will sing the joys of my glittering brothers and sisters, who are frolicking in the land where grows the cactus."

"Do leave alone these elegiac strains," said the parrot, "and sing something to make one laugh. Laughter is the sign of the highest point of all intellect. You never see a dog or a horse laughing. No—they can cry, but to man alone is given the faculty of laughter. Ho-ho-ho!" laughed the parrot, adding his oft-repeated witty saying: "Now, let us be men."

"You little grey Danish bird," said the canary-bird, "you, too, have become a prisoner. It must be very cold in your forests, but still there's liberty to be found in them. Fly away! They have forgotten to close your cage, and the window is open at the top. Fly away! fly away!"