" Miss Laura's eyes filled with tears, and Billy, who
had jumped up when he heard his master's name, fell back again. He knew
what they meant, and from that instant he ceased listening for
footsteps, and lay quite still till he died. Miss Laura had him put in a
little wooden box, and buried him in a corner of the garden, and when
she is working among her flowers, she often speaks regretfully of him,
and of poor Dandy, who lies in the garden at Fairport.
Bella, the parrot, lives with Mrs. Morris, and is as smart as ever. I
have heard that parrots live to a very great age. Some of them even get
to be a hundred years old. If that is the case, Bella will outlive all
of us. She notices that I am getting blind and feeble, and when I go
down to call on Mrs. Morris, she calls out to me, "Keep a stiff upper
lip, Beautiful Joe. Never say die, Beautiful Joe. Keep the game a-going,
Beautiful Joe."
Mrs. Morris says that she doesn't know where Bella picks up her slang
words. I think it is Mr. Ned who teaches her, for when he comes home in
the summer he often says, with a sly twinkle in his eye, "Come out into
the garden, Bella," and he lies in a hammock under the trees, and Bella
perches on a branch near him, and he talks to her by the hour.
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