"Grow again!" shrieked the gray parrot, in the tone of a violin in unskillful hands.
"Yes, grow again, you witch!" said Mrs. Boxall. "I don't see why the devil shouldn't be in you as well as in your betters. Why shouldn't they grow again?"
"Grow again!" reiterated the gray parrot. "Grow again! Widdles! Widdles! Widdles! Ha! ha! ha!"
"It shall grow again," retorted the old lady. "If bear's grease won't do, I'll spend my last penny on a bottle of Macassar; and if it doesn't grow then I'll pluck your back and stick them into his."
Mrs. Boxall had got into a habit of talking thus with the bird, which the bookseller had already nearly cured of his wicked words by instant punishment following each offense.
"Stick them into his!" cried the bird like an echo, and refused to speak again.
Sometimes, however, he would say a naughty word evidently for the sake of testing his master, or as if he wondered what punishment he would have this time—for the punishments were various. On such occasions he would shriek out the word, "Duck his head," and dart to the opposite side of the cage, keeping one eye full on his master, with such an expression that his profile looked like a whole face with a Cyclopean one eye in it.
Whether Mrs. Boxall was at last successful in her benevolent exertions I am unable to say, for her experiments were still going on when the period arrived with which my story must close. She often asserted that she saw them beginning to sprout; and to see her with spectacles on nose, examining the poor withered bluish back of Widdles, was ludicrous or touching, according to the humor of the beholder. Widdles seemed to like the pains she took with him, however; and there is no doubt of one thing, that she was rewarded for her trouble tenfold in being thus withdrawn from the contemplation of her own wrongs and misfortunes. Widdles thus gave her many a peaceful hour she would not in all probability have otherwise enjoyed. Nor were her attentions confined to him; through him, she was introduced to the whole regiment of birds, which she soon began assisting Mr. Kitely to wait upon. Mattie had never taken to them. While grannie, as she, too, called her, was busy with them, Mattie would sit beside at her needlework, scarcely looking up even when she addressed an occasional remark to grannie. It was a curious household, and fell into many singular groups.
But here I must leave Mrs. Boxall with her bird-companions, which, save for the comfort they afforded her in taking her mind off herself, have no active part in the story. Through Mrs. Morgenstern's influence and exertions, Lucy soon had as much to do in the way of teaching as she could compass, and her grandmother knew no difference in her way of living from what she had been accustomed to.
