And so I worked on and on, sticking little patches of skin here, feathers there, and I am afraid making such blunders as would have driven a naturalist frantic, for I am sure that patches of feathers that belonged to the breast were stuck on the back, and smooth back feathers ornamented Polly’s breast. The head was tolerably complete, so that was allowed to hang on the nail in the wall, where it seemed to watch the process of putting together again; but the tail was terrible, and often made me feel ready to give up in despair.
But here my uncle really did help me, for when ever he saw me out of heart and tired he used to say:
“Suppose we give up now for a bit, Nat, and have a run.”
Then when the time came for another try at Polly we used to laugh and say that we would have another turn at Humpty Dumpty.
At last—and I don’t know how long it took—the time had come when Polly’s head was to cease from staring down in a ghastly one-eyed way at her body, and it was to come down and crown the edifice.
I remember it so well. It was a bright, sunny half-holiday, when I was longing to be off fishing, but with Humpty Dumpty incomplete there was no fishing for me, especially as Aunt Sophia had been asking how soon her pet was to be finished.
“Come along, Nat,” said Uncle Joseph, “and we’ll soon finish it.”
I smiled rather sadly, for I did not feel at all sanguine. I made the glue-pot hot, however, and set to work, rearranging a patch or two of feathers that looked very bad, and then I stared at uncle and he gazed at me.
I believe we both had some kind of an idea that the sort of feather tippet that hung from Polly’s head would act as a cloak to hide all the imperfections that were so plain. Certainly some such hopeful idea was in my brain, though I did not feel sanguine.
“Now then, my boy, now then,” cried my uncle, as at last I took Polly’s head from the nail, and he rubbed his hands with excitement. “We shall do it at last.”