A big monster, ever so much higher than our Mary and dressed differently, was just coming into the room.
I gave a cry of alarm, and mounted, mounted in the air till I reached something with branching
arms that came down from the ceiling. I found out afterward that light came from this brass thing. I sat on it, and looking down with my head thrust forward and my frightened feathers packed closely to my body, I called out, “Mary, Mary, I’m scary, scary!” which was a call I had learned from the older birds.
Mary was kissing the monster, and then she sat down close beside him and held on to one of his black arms.
“Dicky, Dicky,” she sang back to me, “this is my daddy, don’t be scary. Why, I thought he had been in the bird-room since you were hatched. Come down, honey.”
Of course if he was her father, he would not hurt me, so I flew back to her shoulder, but what a queer-looking, enormous father! I was glad my parent did not look like that.
He was very loving with her, though, and, stroking her hair, he said, “Don’t tire yourself too much with your birds, Mary.”
“They rest me, father,” she said, shaking her brown head at him, “and this new baby amuses me very much. He is so inquiring and clever and such a little victim, for his bigger brother beats the life out of him.”
“The canary world is like the human world,” said Mary’s father, “sleep, eat, fight, play, over and over again—will your young pet let me stroke him?”
“I think so,” she said, “now that he knows who you are.”