"If you get the garden hose," said Pee-wee, "I'll bring him down for you."
"What are you going to do, kiddo?" Roy asked.
"You'll see," said Pee-wee.
The other boys looked at each other, puzzled. The girl looked half incredulously at Pee-wee and something in his manner gave her a feeling of hope. Most of the others laughed good-humoredly.
They hauled the nozzle end of a garden hose from where it lay coiled near a faucet in the stone foundation. Pee-wee took the nozzle and began to play the stream against the trunk of the tree, all the while looking up at the parrot. Presently, the bird began to "sit up and take notice," as one might say. It was plainly interested. The bystanders began to "sit up and take notice" too, and they watched the bird intently as it cocked its head and listened. Pee-wee sent the stream a little higher up the trunk and as he did so the bird became greatly excited. It began uttering, in the modulated form consonant with its size, the discordant squawk of the parrot. The little girl watched eagerly.
"Get the cage," ordered Pee-wee.
Roy brought it and laid it at his feet. The stream played a little higher, and the bird chattered furiously and came lower.
"Remind you of home?" Pee-wee asked, looking up and playing the water a little higher. The bystanders watched, in silence. The bird was now upon the lowest branch, chattering like mad and flapping its wings frantically. The little girl, in an ecstasy of fresh hope, called to it and danced up and down.
But Pee-wee, like a true artist, neither saw nor heard his audience. He was playing the bird with this line of water as an angler plays a fish. And never was moth lured by a flame more irresistibly than this little green fugitive was lured by the splashing of that stream.
"Oh, can you catch him? Can you catch him?" pleaded the girl as she clutched Pee-wee's arm.