hough he never exactly said so,
I am sure he thought it had "musick in't," for as soon as I touched
the handle of the door he set up a shriek of joy!

The bird that we nurse is the bird that we love, and I soon loved
Dick. And the love was not all on one side, for my bonnie bird would
sit upon my finger uttering complacent little chirps, and when I sang
to him in a low voice he would gently peck my hair.

As he grew on and wanted to use his limbs, I put him into a large
wicker bonnet-basket, having taken out the lining; it made him a large
cheerful airy cage. Of course I had a perch put across it, and he had
plenty of white sand and a pan of water; sometimes I set his bath on
the floor of the room, and he delighted in bathing until he looked
half-drowned; then what shaking of his feathers, what _preening_ and
arranging there was! And how happy and clean and comfortable he looked
when his toilet was completed!

You may be sure that I took him some of the first ripe currants and
strawberries, for blackbirds like fruit, and so do boys! When he was
fledged I let him out in the room, and so he could exercise his wings.
It is a curious fact that if I went up to him with my bonnet on he did
not know me at all, but was in a state of great alarm.

Blackbirds are wild birds, and do not bear being kept in a cage, not
even so well as some other birds do; and as this bird grew up he was
not so tame, and was rather restless. I knew that, though I loved him
so much, I ought not to keep him shut up against his will. He was
carried down into the garden while the raspberries were ripe, and
allowed to fly away; and I have never seen him since. Do you wonder
that my eyes filled with tears when he left?

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