"Damn! Damn! Damn!" remarked Poll Parrot pleasantly, as if to show that he really could talk. "Polly wants a cracker. Oh, damn! Damn! Fools and idiots! Damn!"
"It isn't conversation I care for. It's too much like having a man around again." Mrs. Schuneman was quite shocked.
After they had made their choice and had a bird in a neat little wooden cage and had bought a fine brass cage for a permanent home they stopped at a confectioner's for a sundae. Mary Rose's cheeks were as pink as pink as they sat at the little table and ate ice cream and discussed a name for the new member of the Schuneman family. They finally agreed on Germania in deference to Mrs. Schuneman's love for her native country and Mary Rose's firm belief that a bird's name should be suggestive of music. "And I've heard that lots of music was made in Germany," she said.
Altogether it was a very pleasant afternoon and they went back to the Washington very happily. Mrs. Schuneman carried Germania in the temporary wooden cage and Mary Rose proudly bore the brass cage. As they went up the steps a man brushed past them. He was tall and thin and had a nervous irritable manner that one felt as well as saw. Mary Rose locked up and smiled politely.
"Good afternoon," she said.
The tall thin man did not answer her. He did not even look at her but hurried on up the stairs.
"That's Mr. Wells," Mrs. Schuneman explained in a hoarse whisper that must have followed Mr. Wells up the stairs and caught him at the first landing. "He's an awful grouch. He's over the Brackens, but if Lottie is entertaining one of her bridge clubs and he's at home he's sure to send his Jap man down to ask her to make less noise. I've never spoken to him in my life. I don't see how you dared."
"I always spoke to people in Mifflin." Mary Rose couldn't understand why she shouldn't speak to people in Waloo.
"Folks don't speak to folks in Waloo unless they've been introduced," Mrs. Schuneman told her gloomily. "The good God knows I've had to learn that. And you're too young to know good from bad," she began, as Aunt Kate had, but Mary Rose interrupted her to explain that she could, that she had the right kind of an eye, and he tried to tell her what the right kind of an eye was.
"You look through your heart with it," vaguely. "I don't understand just how for your eyes are here," she touched her face, "and your heart's here," and her hand tapped her small chest. "But that's what daddy said. He called it the friendly eye. Being friendly to people, he said, was as if you had a candle in your heart and the light shines through your eyes. Oh, Mrs. Schuneman, I do believe Germania is going to like it here." For Germania was twittering as if she did find her new home to her liking.