“Mary had a little dog,
He was a noble pup;
He’d stand upon his front legs
When you held his hind legs up!”
The parrots were noisy things. I don’t see why any one should want a parrot around, do you? There was one that used to look at me by the hour with his head on one side until I got quite nervous. When I barked at him he would laugh and say “Here, Fido! Here, Fido! Good dog! Good dog! Who killed the chicken?” I wished very much that I could have got hold of that parrot and pulled some of his tail-feathers out!
Well, I stayed in that store a long time, and I got so I didn’t mind the noise much. We had plenty to eat and drink and once a day we were taken into a tiny yard at the back to run around. Of course I wasn’t happy, and I used to long for my home and Mother and Father and the Baby and William and Freya and, most of all, I think, for Alfred. When I got to thinking about them I felt very sad and would often cry myself to sleep, just as I used to do behind the flower-pots. I tell you I missed those flower-pots a great deal those days! I had quite given up the hope of ever getting back to my home, or even getting away from the animal store, when one day a wonderful thing happened, a thing so wonderful that it deserves a chapter all to itself!
CHAPTER X
BACK HOME AGAIN
I was having a little nap at the back of my cage when I heard a lady’s voice say: “No, thank you, we are just looking about. My little boy wants to see the dogs.”