ollowing Sonny Boy and the coachman
cheered and cheered.

Sonny Boy was afraid they would tear the cage from his arms. And they
might have, had not the coachman used his fists to clear the way.

"Get us out of this, Jarvis!" said Aunt Kate.

Jarvis made the horses plunge forward, but Sonny Boy could hear the shouts
following them along the street.

"She--she's a remarkable parrot," said Sonny Boy faintly.

"I should think so!" said Aunt Kate.

"I didn't exactly bring the parrot. She belongs to another fel--another
girl," explained Sonny Boy, a little confused.

"I'm so glad!" said Aunt Kate heartily.

"I had my white mice in a cage just about as large as this. You ought to
see them! Trixie and I have drilled them into two armies, American and
Spanish, and we've got the commanders on both sides--and, oh, I don't know
where they are now! I changed cages with a girl!"

[Illustration: "THE COACHMAN USED HIS FISTS TO CLEAR THE WAY."]

"Oh, we'll find them, never fear! And the girl shall have her parrot,"
said Aunt Kate, growing suddenly very cheerful.

When they reached Aunt Kate's house a beautiful Angora cat ran into the
hall to meet her mistress. "Scat! Scat!" screamed the parrot. She had torn
the newspaper off the cage with her sharp beak and was taking a look
around her.

Off whisked the cat in terror, and hid, so that no one could find her.
Then Aunt Kate's little poodle waddled up to the cage. "Bow-wow!" barked
the parrot. And they couldn't drag the poodle out of the coal-cellar that
night!

Sonny Boy lay awake that night longer than he had ever lain awake a night
in his life, planning how to rid himself of that parrot and get his white
mice again.

In the morning Aunt Kate sent out for all the daily papers, but there was
no advertisement of a lost parrot in them. The parrot, with her cage
muffled, was shut up in the back attic, but Aunt Kate had a nervous
headache.

Sonny Boy felt sure that she was wishing she had borrowed some other one
of the Plummers who wouldn't have brought a parrot, and he was very
unhappy. When Aunt Kate sat down at her desk to write an advertisement for
a girl who changed a parrot for a cage of white mice, Sonny Boy stole up
to the attic and got the parrot, and slipped out at the front door. He did
not know the name of the station where Lena and her nurse had stopped, but
he knew that it was the next station to the city, and that there was a
children's hospital there.

Wh