“Good-day to thyself,” retorted the padre. He spoke in Spanish, shaking a stout finger. “And tear not the flowers again. They be the last of the kind till after the New Year. So take warning, I say, lest thou find thyself thrust without the garden.”
Loretta recognized displeasure in his voice. She mumbled an inquiring “Ga-a-wk! ga-a-wk!” and shifted thoughtfully from foot to foot. But, presently, the padre having resumed his reading, she turned once more to catch at the swaying branch.
When a second fuchsia came fluttering down to his hand, Padre Alonzo uncrossed his sandals and rose. “Oh! oh! oh!” he cried, wagging his close-cropped head so vigorously that the very beads of his rosary tinkled together. “Thou art the naughtiest bird in all of California! What if Padre Anzar finds thee despoiling his plant? He will put thee again where thou must fight to keep thy feathers—in the kitchen with the cats!”
At the mention of cats a startling change came over the parrot. Her plumage ruffled, her eyes began to roll, she straightened on the perch, uttering hoarse cries of fear and defiance.
“Then be good,” he counselled, “be good. Or off thou’lt likely go. Me-e-ow! me-e-ow!”
And now Loretta moved nearer, anxious for friendly terms. “Dame la mano,” she suggested; “a-a-aw, dame la mano! A-a-aw! a-a-aw!” She balanced tremblingly on one leg, curling the other under her.
Padre Alonzo put the stout finger into the proffered claw. “So, so,” he said. “And I shall not tattle. But tell me: What would make thee forget to use thy sharp pruning shears? An apple? or seeds? or one of Gabrielda’s sweet bis—”
Loretta perked her head to one side. “To-o-ny, To-o-ny, To-o-ny,” she droned coaxingly.
The padre thrust his thumbs under the white cord of his girdle and broke into a guffaw. “Thou jade!” he teased. “Wilt have Tony, eh? Well, I go to find him.” He gathered in his brown cassock, preparatory to stepping over the cacti here bordering the garden path. “But look you, if he comes, scrape not the gilt from the wires of his pretty cage.”
Another threatening shake of the finger, and the padre crossed the low, spiked hedge and waddled away through the sun.