The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 / A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers

VOLUME XXII.—No. 4. BOSTON: JOHN L. SHOREY, No. 36 BROMFIELD STREET, 1877.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by JOHN L. SHOREY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. FRANKLIN PRESS: RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 117 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON.

THE PARROT THAT PLAYED TRUANT.

LD Miss Dorothy Draper had a parrot. It was one of the few things she loved. And the parrot seemed to love her in return. Miss Dorothy would hang the cage outside of her window every sunny day. Sometimes an idle boy would come along, and poke a stick between the wires; and then the old lady would say, Boy, go away!
But one day, when the window was open, and the door of the cage was open also, Polly thought it was a good time to play truant. So she hopped out, rested on the sill a moment, and then flew into the street, from tree to tree, and from lamp-post to lamp-post.
Poor Miss Dorothy was in despair. How should she get back her lost pet? She called in a policeman, and he advised her to get out a handbill, offering a reward. So in an hour this notice was pasted on the walls near by:—
LOST!—A green-and-white parrot. It answers to the name of Polly, and can talk quite plainly. It says, Boy, go away! also, Polly wants a cracker, and No, you don't! Any one finding this bird shall, on returning it to its afflicted owner, Miss D. Draper, No. 10, Maiden Place, receive a reward of two dollars.
Little Tony Peterkin was walking home from school, and wishing he had money enough to buy a copy of Virgil without going to his mother for it,—for she was a widow, and poor,—when he saw a man pasting this handbill on a wall. Tony read it, and said aloud, Oh, I wish I could find that parrot!
A girl who heard him said, I saw a parrot just now on one of the trees in Lake Street. — Did you? said Tony; and off he ran. The parrot had flown from the tree to the top of the lamp-post; and when Tony got there, two women, a newsboy, and a policeman were looking up at the strange fowl.