“Polly want a cracker, ha, ha,” laughed the parrot.
“No, Polly doesn’t want a cracker, ha, ha,” the parrot continued. “For there is no one in the room to give me a cracker, and I’ve eaten up the one I had in my cage. I have some seed and some water, but not a trace of a cracker.”
Polly, the parrot, stepped out of her cage and looked about the room. She flew this way and that, and she had a good-sized room in which to fly—a room with very high ceilings.
“Polly doesn’t see a cracker,” she said to herself. She couldn’t talk to any one else, you see, because there was no one else in the room. And she knew perfectly well that the pictures on the walls and the rugs on the floor didn’t care about being talked to. She had never heard them say anything or fly about or walk about—and she knew very well why they couldn’t.
Because they weren’t live things. They weren’t people, nor were they animals, nor birds. They were nothing but rugs and pictures and extremely, extremely silly.
She hadn’t been looking about long when her mistress came in all dressed up in a most beautiful manner.
“Well, Polly,” her mistress said, “we are having a party to-day.”
“Polly have a party, Polly have a party,” said the parrot.
And when the guests arrived Polly looked down from her perch and said: “Polly have a party, Polly have a party.” How every one did laugh and admire the nice, cheerful, friendly Polly Parrot. And her mistress was very proud of Polly!