Ma shook her handkerchief at Polly, and
looked sassy, and Polly got up on the perch, and as the minister got
warmed up and began to raise the roof, Polly said, 'O, dry up.' The
minister had his eyes shut, but he opened one of them a little and looked
at Pa. Pa was tickled at the parrot, but when the minister looked at Pa as
though it was him that was making irreverent remarks, Pa was mad.
"The minister got to the 'amen,' and Polly shook hisself and said 'What
you giving us?' and the minister got up and brushed the bird seed off his
knees, and he looked mad. I thought Ma would sink with mortification, and
I was sitting on a piano stool looking as pious as a Sunday school
superintendent the Sunday before he skips out with the bank's funds; and
Ma looked at me as though she thought it was me that had been tampering
with the parrot. Gosh, I never said a word to that parrot, and I can prove
it by my chum.
"Well, the minister asked one of the sisters if she wouldn't pray, and she
wasn't engaged, so she said with pleasure, and she kneeled down, but she
corked herself, cause she got one knee on a cast-iron dumb bell that I had
been practising with. She said 'O my,' in a disgusted sort of a way, and
then she began to pray for the reformation of the youth of the land, and
asked for the spirit to descend on the household, and particularly on the
boy that was such a care and anxiety to his parents, and just then Polly
said 'O, pull down your vest.
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