"
"Yes, I do," cried the little girl. "I'll get it something to eat this
very minute."
These spasms of attention only lasted a day or two, however, when my
young keeper would lapse into carelessness, and again I would be
allowed to go with an empty crop and a dry throat. My beautiful
plumage grew rusty from this irregularity and continual neglect, and
although I am not a vain bird, my dingy appearance was a source of
daily grief and mortification to me. When Betty was not too busy
playing she sometimes hung my cage outside the door of the cottage, but
often for days together through the pleasant summer I was left hanging
in the kitchen, sometimes half-choked with smoke or dampened with
steam. No wonder I drooped and ceased my cheerful song.
The days when I was put out of doors were indeed gala days to me. Many
families of young chickens lived in the back yard, and the pipings of
the little ones and the scoldings of the mothers when their children
ran too far away from them, were always amusing to listen to and gave
me something to think about which kept my mind off my own troubles.
I liked to watch the hens with their fuzzy broods tumbling about them,
or with the older chicks when they scratched the ground and ceaselessly
clucked for them to come to get their share of what was turned up in
the soil; meanwhile they kept a sharp lookout with their bright eyes to
see that no outsider shared in the feast.
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