CHAPTER FOUR.
THE REMAINS OF POOR POLLY.
The very first opportunity, my uncle took me up with him to thelumber-room, an attic of which my aunt kept the key; and here, afterquite a hunt amongst old portmanteaux, broken chairs, dusty tables,bird-cages, wrecked kennels, cornice-poles, black-looking pictures, anddozens of other odds and ends, we came in a dark corner upon the remainsof one of my aunt's earliest pets. It was the stuffed figure of a greyparrot that had once stood beneath a glass shade, but the shade wasbroken, and poor Polly, who looked as if she had been moulting eversince she had been fixed upon her present perch, had her head partlytorn from her shoulders.
"Here she is," said my uncle. "Poor old Polly! What a bird she was toscreech! She never liked me, Nat, but used to call me _wretch_, asplain as you could say it yourself. It was very wicked of me, I daresay, Nat, but I was so glad when she died, and your aunt was so sorrythat she cried off and on for a week."
"But she never was a pretty bird, uncle," I said, holding the stuffedcreature to the light.
"No, my boy, never, and she used to pull off her feathers when she wasin a passion, and call people _wretch_. She bit your aunt's nose once.But do you think it will do?"
"Oh yes, uncle," I said; "but may I pull it to pieces?"
"Well, yes, my boy, I think so," he said dreamily. "You couldn't spoilit, could you?"
"Why, it is spoiled already, Uncle Joe," I said.
"Yes, my boy, so it is; quite spoiled. I think I'll risk it, Nat."
"But if aunt would be very cross, uncle, hadn't I better leave it?" Isaid.
"If you didn't take it, Nat, she would never see it again, and it wouldlie here and moulder away. I think you had better take it, my boy."
I was so eager to begin that I hesitated no more, but took the bird outinto the tool-house, where I could make what aunt called "a mess"without being scolded, and uncle put on his smoking-cap, lit his pipe,and brought a high stool to sit upon and watch me make my first attemptat mastering a mystery.
The first thing was to take Polly off her perch, which was a piece oftwig covered with moss, that had once been glued on, but now came awayin my hands, and I found that the bird had been kept upright by means ofwires that ran down her legs and were wound about the twig.
Uncle smoked away as solemnly as could be, while I went on, and heseemed to be admiring my earnestness.
"There's wire up the legs, uncle," I cried, as I felt about the bird.
"Oh! is there?" he said, condescendingly.
"Yes, uncle, and two more pieces in the wings."
"You don't say so, Nat!"
"Yes, uncle, and another bit runs right through the body from the headto the tail; and--yes--no--yes--no--ah, I've found out how it is thatthe tail is spread."
"Have you, Nat?" he cried, letting his pipe out, he was so full ofinterest.
"Yes, uncle; there's a thin wire threaded through all the tail feathers,just as if they were beads."
"Why, what a boy you are!" he cried, wonderingly.
"Oh, it's easy enough to find that out, uncle," I said, colouring. "Nowlet's see what's inside."
"Think there's anything inside, Natty, my boy?"
"Oh yes, uncle," I said; "it's full of something. Why, it's tow."
"Toe, my boy!" he said seriously, "parrot's toe?"
"T-o-w. Tow, uncle, what they use to clean the lamps. I can stuff abird, uncle, I know."
"Think you can, Natty?"
"Yes, to be sure," I said confidently. "Why, look here, it's easy tomake a ball of tow the same shape as an egg for the body, and then topush wires through the body, and wings, and legs; no, stop a moment,they seem to be fastened in. Yes, so they are, but I know I can do it."
Uncle Joe held his pipe in his mouth with his teeth and rubbed his handswith satisfaction, for he was as pleased with my imagined success as Iwas, and as he looked on I pulled out the stuffing from the skin,placing the wings here, the legs there, and the tail before me, whilethe head with its white-irised glass eye was stuck upon a nail in thewall just over the bench.
"I feel as sure as can be, uncle, that I could stuff one."
"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "_Wretch! wretch! wretch_! That's what Pollywould say if she could speak. See how you've pulled her to pieces."
I looked up as he spoke, and there was the head with its queer glasseyes seeming to stare hard at me, and at the mess of skin and featherson the bench.
"Well, I have pulled her to pieces, haven't I, uncle?" I said.
"That you have, my boy," he said, chuckling, as if he thought it verygood fun.
"But I have learned how to stuff a bird, uncle," I said triumphantly.
"And are you going to stuff Polly again?" he asked, gazing at the raggedfeathers and skin.
I looked at him quite guiltily.
"I--I don't think I could put this one together again, uncle," I said."You see it was so ragged and torn before I touched it, and the feathersare coming out all over the place. But I could do a fresh one. You seethere's nothing here but the skin. All the feathers are falling away."
"Yes," said my uncle, "and I know--"
"Know what, uncle?"
"Why, they do the skin over with some stuff to preserve it, and you'llhave to get it at the chemist's."
"Yes, uncle."
"And I don't know, Natty," he said, "but I think you might try and putpoor old Polly together again, for I don't feel quite comfortable abouther; you have made her in such a dreadful mess."
"Yes, I have, indeed, uncle," I said dolefully, for the eagerness wasbeginning to evaporate.
"And your aunt was very fond of her, my boy, and she wouldn't like it ifshe knew."
"But I'm afraid I couldn't put her together again now, uncle;" and thenI began to tremble, and my uncle leaped off his stool, and broke hispipe: for there was my aunt's well-known step on the gravel, anddirectly after we heard her cry:
"Joseph! Nathaniel! What are you both doing?" And I knew that Ishould have to confess.