wait. There was just one chance in a million.
“Get wool, Iglodine and silk thread,” I cried, and, taking out my nail scissors, sterilized them by the simple method of holding over a burning match.
One quick ‘snip’ and the flesh parted. So did Penelope—with a leg. The bone was trimmed, the wound bathed in Iglodine, the stump was tied round with some silk thread and covered with a tiny pad of boracic wool.
Poor Penelope was far gone, so we put her into a cage without perches. It was touch and go, but we fed her often with a fountain pen filler, and she hung on to life. In twenty-four hours she began to eat some soaked seed. Eventually, in about two weeks, Penelope pulled off her bandage with her strong beak, and behold—a clean healed stump was revealed.
Now she was removed to a cage with perches, and she soon learnt how to balance herself on one foot. It was a very tiring job, and she often came down and laid her body on the floor of the cage, to rest her weary leg.
Her strength regained, a very demure Penelope was returned to the flight. It was a heart-rending sight; we had thought that her dream of love had ended. However, she clung to the wire with her beak and one remaining leg, but she could not respond to Pierrot’s song of love. She was unable to use her beak and hang on at the same time, and so she was bereft of speech, and could only listen.
Old Pierrot was nearly bowled over at her plight; but his love was strong and true, so he never let her see that. He still sang his lay, if anything, stronger than ever.
Our hearts bled for them, and so impressed were we with Pierrot’s fidelity we determined on a daring experiment. They were both put into a breeding pen. They were united at last; their joy was unbounded. The nest was hung, and we fixed a double perch close to the entrance to enable Penelope to get in or out more easily.
We thought that she would never make that tiny hole that served as the entrance to her miniature ‘Villa’. But love soon found a way, and in about two weeks’ time Penelope was sitting on four beautiful white eggs. Joy came to the heart of Pierrot. The eggs were fertile, and in due course four tiny pink chicks were hatched—and each had two tiny legs.
Penelope and Pierrot were almost hysterical with joy. The chicks lived and prospered. They, in turn, went to the shows and brought home many prizes.
Both Penelope and Pierrot are now ‘pensioned off’. I see them as I write. Her head is tucked up into his neck, his head encircles hers as he tickles her off-side ear, so tenderly with his beak. Her eyes are half closed, and in the deepening shadows she listens to a radio in the distance broadcasting the ‘golden voice’ of Grace Moore singing ‘One Night of Love’.
We sigh happily as we fix the padlocks for the night. We have just seen a perfect ending to a perfect budgie idyll that might well have been a tragedy.
TOLD TO A PEPPER POT
CHAPTER II
TOLD TO A PEPPER POT
A Feathered Prodigy Confounds the Critics
“Hello, everybody! This is Beauty Metcalfe calling—I’ll be seeing you!”
Tap! Tap! Tap! went his tiny beak upon the rim of the pepper-pot.
“Where’s Georgie-Porgie-Porgie? I beg your pardon! Ha! Ha! Jolly good!”
My mouth opened as though to laugh, my eyes had already assumed the proportions of dinner plates. It was unbelievable; it was uncanny. I could not speak. A feeling of awe had taken possession of me. I felt that I was hoist with my own petard. For the past two years I had boosted the ‘talking budgie’, and in that time had heard hundreds of these fascinating little fellows displaying their linguistic abilities; and yet, until I had made the acquaintance of Beauty Metcalfe in person, I had seen and heard nothing. Now I felt very foolish.
“Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
And all the King’s horses (pronounced horsis) and
all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
Before I had time to register my surprise, he was at it again—with a true Oxford accent, too.
“Every time I look, the monkey’s on the table.
Get a stick—get a stick! and knock him off,
And Pop! goes the weasel. . . . Jolly good!”
“You say it, Beauty. . . . Ha! ha!”
He laughed at his own joke.
He danced up and down, he bowed and rubbed his nose on now dented top of that famous pepper-pot. What action! His neck was arched, his spotless white bib stood out in front of him like a ruffle—he was proud! He turned quickly, ran to the edge of the table, cocked his head sideways and looked at me.
“Hey diddle diddle. . . . Go on, you say it!”
I gasped! His eye held me spellbound. It was bold and extraordinarily bright—there was a look of profound intelligence in it. I must have looked for all the world like a credulous youngster standing open-mouthed before a Punch and Judy show, for Beauty simply chuckled and scampered back to his pepper-pot. Never had I heard such a melodious expression of exultation, never had any budgie in my recollection shown such vivacity.
“Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep . . .” word perfect and with flawless delivery, was followed instantaneously by—
“Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet . . .”
“Doesn’t he ever get mixed up?” I asked.
“Oh yes, sometimes. He gets terribly excited like a precocious young child,” said his Mistress, “He goes too fast, and then . . . . . he only chuckles and says, ‘Say it again, Beauty,’ so we cannot scold him.”
“Sing a song of sixpence. . . .”
He went through that with lightning speed. I tried to say the words, silently, in time with him, but got badly tongue-tied. He must have known, for he gave me such a look from the corner of his eye.
“You say it, Beauty!”
I felt snubbed.
“Good-night!”
I deserved that. For nearly twenty minutes he had given me excerpts from his repertoire, without pause. Who was I but a mere scribbler? while he—he was a “Star”
On the night of December 2nd, 1937, for almost thirty minutes, Beauty Metcalfe, a lovely, deep blue budgerigar, held the world astonished as they listened in to the recording of his thrilling chatter. There was not the slightest shadow of doubt; he scooped the pool.
Many critics said that the record had been joined up; that no living bird could have spoken for so long a period without pause or prompting. But I assure all those people who listened
