Eliza gave a surprised consent, but watched the boy closely as he
stood near and chirped to me calling me, "Po-o-o-r Dickey Downy," as
soon as he found out my name. I saw from the way Eliza kept her eyes
on his movements that she was expecting he would do something to hurt
me, but in this she was pleasantly disappointed, for he never once
touched my cage and cooed as softly when he spoke to me as Polly
herself might have done.
I was quite afraid of him at first, for ever since my experience with
the wicked schoolboys who clubbed us in the linden trees, and my later
experience with Joe, I disliked boys very much.
[Illustration: The Bobolink.]
When John Charles had bidden Eliza "good-morning" and tipped his hat
again and the door closed after him, she said to me: "Why, Dickey, that
was a new kind of a boy! He never once tried to hurt you or to scare
you. It shows that all boys are not rough, and I shall always like
John Charles, for he is a little gentleman."
To this sentiment I fully agreed, and I thought, "Alas! why are not all
boys as gentle as John Charles?"
In a few hours I felt as much at home with Eliza as if I had always
lived there, and I was much pleased when I heard her tell Katharine at
the supper table the next evening how much she had enjoyed having me
with her.
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