for
stories--indoors, at any rate. Wait till we get a real wet day, and then
we'll see. After dinner to-day, what do you think we're going to do?
Suppose we have a row on the lake to get water-lilies, and suppose we
take a kettle and make ourselves some tea on the other side of the lake.
What would you say to that, Master Olly?"

The children began to dance about with delight at the idea of a row and
a picnic both together, when suddenly there was a knock at the door, and
when Aunt Emma said, "Come in!" what do you think appeared? Why, a great
green cage, carried by a servant, and in it a gray parrot, swinging
about from side to side, and cocking his head wickedly, first over one
shoulder and then over the other.

"Now, children," said Aunt Emma, while the children stood quite still
with surprise, "let me introduce you to my old friend, Mr. Poll Parrot.
Perhaps you thought I lived all alone in this big house. Not at all.
Here is somebody who talks to me when I talk to him, who sings and
chatters and whistles and cheers me up wonderfully in the winter
evenings, when the rains come and make me feel dull. Put him down here,
Margaret," said Aunt Emma to the maid, clearing a small table for the
cage. "Now, Olly, what do you think of my parrot?"

"Can it talk?" asked Olly, looking at it with very wide open eyes.

"It _can_ talk; whether it _will_ talk is quite another thing. Parrots
are contradictious birds. I feel very often as if I should like to beat
Polly, he's so provoking. Now, Polly, how are you to-day?"

"Polly's got a bad cold; fetch the doc--" said the bird at once, in such
a funny cracked voice, that it made Olly jump as if he had heard one of
the witches in Grimm's "Fairy Tales" talking.

"Come, Polly, that's very well behaved of you; but you mustn't leave off
in the middle, begin again. Olly, if you don't keep your fingers out of
the way Polly will snap them up for his dinner. Parrots like fingers
very much." Olly put his hands behind his back in a great hurry, and
mother came to stand behind him to keep him quiet. By this time,
however, Polly had begun to find out that there were some new people in
the room he didn't know, and for a long time Aunt Emma could not make
him talk at all. He would do nothing but put his head first on one side
and then on the other and make angry clicks with his beak.

"Come, Polly," said Aunt Emma, "what a cross parrot you are.
One--two--three--four. Now, Polly, count."

"P