When he came into sight a moment later round the dun wall of the mission, he carried a canary at his shoulder. “E-oo, e-oo,” he cooed, pattering forward. “Loretta wishes thy company. Sst! sst! She is bad after thee, Tony! But be wary, little one, be wary.”
The advice was wholly ignored. For, spying the parrot, Tony was instantly transformed from a silent, dumpy ball of yellow to a slim, dapper songster with a swelling throat.
Loretta greeted him with uproarious laughter, and a jargon of Spanish, patois, but triumphant. She paced the horizontal piece that gave her perch the form of a cross. She pu-r-red and gu-r-red. She swung by her curved beak and one leathery foot, shrilling her “Buenos días, señor!” Then, as the padre hung the cage to a nail in the trellis built against the wall, she changed her performance to the clamorous repeating of a mass.
Padre Alonzo was shocked. “Sst! sst!” he chided; “thou wicked big-ears!”
The noon angelus was ringing. He caught up book and gown. But before going he pulled at Loretta’s gaudy tail, not unkindly, and chuckled as she edged toward Tony with many a naïve and fetching cock of her gray head.
