n't miners sometimes take
parrots into mines with them to warn them against poisonous fumes?"

"A canary I've heard of--not a parrot," said Mr. Martin. "And we're
really in very little danger from poisonous fumes. But I guess we
can't risk offending a neighbor by refusing a gift."

"Taking care of a parrot can be a lot of work," said Mrs. Martin.

"I'll help," offered Cathy. And Jerry was grateful to her.

"Fire!" the parrot kept bawling. "Fire!"

"Go down and put something over his cage or we'll not get any sleep,"
Jerry's mother told him. "Yes, you can keep him. I might have known
when I saw that parrot come into the house that he would stay."

As Jerry galloped down the stairs to the recreation room with a scarf
to put over Pedro's cage, he wondered if he would have hurried quite
as fast over to the Bullfinch house if it had not been for the money
in the grandfather clock. He had slipped in and put it back there
before coming home. Fire was not likely to strike twice in the same
house, he had thought.

Pedro was making gentle, clucking noises.

"Good night, old bird," said Jerry, after he had put the scarf over
the cage. "I wonder if parrots eat candy," he thought on his way
upstairs to bed. "When I get that candy from Mr. Bartlett tomorrow I'm
going to try Pedro on a piece of a lime mint. They're almost the same
color as the feathers near his throat."

Joy of ownership of a handsome green parrot made Jerry's steps light
on the stairs. He went to bed by moonlight. There seemed to be a glow
on everything.

10

May Day

"How nice that today is pleasant, so you can have your May Day
exercises outdoors," Mrs. Martin said, as she bustled about getting
her children's breakfast on the table.

"Did you finish hemming my dress?" asked Cathy. She was to be crowned
May Queen and was so worried about looking exactly right that she
could hardly eat her breakfast.

"It's all packed in a suit box," said Mrs. Martin. "I put in Andy's
costume under it. Be surer of getting there if you carry it."

"Do I have to wear that silly sash?" Andy was to help wind the Maypole
and was to wear yellow cambric shorts, a white blouse, and a yellow
sash around his middle.

"You must dress as your teacher told you to," said his mother. "Be
careful with that glass of milk, Andy."

Jerry was thankful that his only part in the May Day festival was to
help seat the parents. And that all he had to wear different from
usual w