SONNY BOY BECOMES A
SCHOLAR
CHAPTER V
SONNY BOY BECOMES A SCHOLAR
Polly was so lively on the way back to the city that Sonny Boy didn’t dare to take her into a passenger-car. The smoking-car happened to be almost empty, and the conductor said he would better go in there.
Polly didn’t like the empty smoking-car. She wished to be where there were plenty of people to admire her, and she showed her displeasure by making a dreadful noise. She barked and miaowed and cackled and crowed, and squealed and lowed and whinneyed and brayed and squawked and roared and growled, until one would have thought the smoking-car was nothing less than Noah’s Ark. A crowd of people came rushing into the car, and among them was a man who looked like a sailor, who insisted upon taking the covering from Polly’s cage and holding her up to the light.
“Belong to you?” he said. “Don’t want to sell her, do you?”
Sonny Boy’s heart gave a great leap. He was himself so very tired of Polly’s voice, and he had so dreaded to take her back to Aunt Kate, that it did not seem to him possible that any one could want her.