"Oh, mamma, look at him!" screamed little Hope, who at that moment spied me indulging in my favorite exercise, swinging back and forth on my chain. The children and their mother ran toward me, while I, with one of my loud laughs (which I have heard some people say was a very wicked laugh: I don't think so), skillfully swung myself back to my branch, frightening as I did it a crowd of my feathered friends who were gathered about my feed dish. The children's mother saw them fly away. "Look," she cried; "there go the ogres. It is those thieving sparrows who eat so much, and not Lorito himself."
Now the sparrows may be too bold sometimes, but I do not think they are thieves, and it made me very angry to hear them called such a bad name. I screamed and struck my wings together so violently that I slipped from the branch, and was again swinging in the air by my chain.
"Mamma, Rito will break his legs, and then we shall have to kill him," screamed Louis, in alarm.
"Take off his chain, oh, mamma, do," said kind-hearted Carrie; while little Hope pleaded in her sweet voice: "Poor Rito will be good, mamma. He won't bite things any more."
You can not imagine how eagerly I listened to the discussion, for to be free from my chain was now my sole ambition. My heart was touched by the affection of the children, and when, to my intense delight, their mother yielded to their entreaties, I made a firm resolve that I would never bite and tear things again, unless by good luck I could find an old newspaper or a worthless stick, because I knew if I could not use my beak occasionally, it would ache as bad as Carrie's tooth does some nights when she goes crying to bed.
Since that time my life has been very peaceful. I am free as air, my wings have recovered their strength, and I go wherever I please. Whenever my little master Louis whistles for me I answer him at once, for I have learned to whistle as well as he, and I always go as fast as I can to perch upon his hand.
"I GO INTO MY CAGE."
When night comes, and it grows dark, I go into my cage myself, and my good friend Fritz always sleeps near me.
I have not forgotten my dear papa and mamma, nor my brother and sister, and I often wonder if they are still living in the beautiful hollow tree by the Congo; but I have learned to love new things, and to remember my childhood as a sweet dream instead of a lost and longed-for reality.