She went, closing the door after her. No one spoke. Job moved his head from side to side, and, apparently making up his little mind that he was all alone, he shook the bell peal after peal. Presently his mistress appeared. "Did you think mamma had gone and left you, Job darling? Mamma can't stay away from her baby."
The cooing tone pleased the little creature, and he sang again even more sweetly than before.
"Let me show you another of his tricks. You see this little gun? Well, when he fires it off that will be the end of poor Job!"
The gun was about two inches long and as large around as a lead pencil. Inside was a tiny spring; and when Job's claw touched the spring the gun went off with a loud report. Job fell over at once as if shot and lay perfectly still and stiff on the rug. Lucy screamed out:—-
"Oh, I'm so sorry he is dead!"
But next moment he roused himself and sat up and shook his feathers as if he relished the joke.
The children had a delightful half hour with the captain's widow and her pets; only Lucy could not be satisfied because Bab was away.
"Too bad you went off riding yesterday," said she as they sat next morning playing with their dolls. "You never saw that blind canary that shoots himself, and comes to life and rings a bell."
"But can't I see him sometime, Auntie Lucy?"
"You can, oh, yes, and I'll go with you. But, Bab, you ought to have heard our talk about the play! Kyzie is going to be as much as a hundred years old, and I guess Uncle James will be a hundred and fifty. And they've got a pair of old glasses with sand inside—the same kind that Adam and Eve used to have."