Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: had so few feathers, I should die too. It does not seem much worth living with so few on. One could hardly call oneself a bird. So one evening, when I came home, I found Jenny in tears, and there on the hearth-rug, was the poor old parrot, dead, and about as bald as a bird could be— except in a pie. I asked Jenny how it all happened ; but she couldn't speak at first for crying, and when she did tell me, it was heart-breaking to hear her sobs between the words. " You know," she began, " Polly hasn't been eating enough for a long lime, and to-day, when I came in from my housekeeping, I saw him looking very sad about something. So I called him, and he came down off his perch. But he couldn't hop; he was too weak, so he walked quite slowly across the floor to me—and so unsteadily ! I knew there was something dreadful going to happen. And when he got to my feet he couldn't climb up my dress, as he generally does. And I said to him, ' Polly, what's the matter with you ?' and he said "—but here she broke down altogether for a bit—"and he looked up at me and said, " Polly's very sick.' And when I picked him up he was as light as—oh ! so light. And he sat on my lap without moving, only breathing very hard. And then after a little, I saw his head drooping, so I touched him to wake him up. And he started up, and shook himself so hard that he rolled over on his side, and then I heard him saying something to himself, so I put down my head to listen. And he opened his eye again quite wide, and looked at me just as if he knew who I was quite well, and whispered to me,' poor Polly's going to die.' And then he shut his wings up tight, and stretched out one leg after the other—and—and died." I was very sorry for it, after he was really dead, for Jenny was very fond of him, and the parrot, ...