“But about the parrot.  Ma has been away from home for a week, having a high old time in Chicago, going to theatres and things, and while she was gone, I guess the hired girl or somebody learned the parrot some new things to say.  A parrot that can only say ‘Polly wants a cracker,’ don’t amount to anything—­what we need is new style parrots that can converse on the topics of the day, and say things original.  Well, when Ma got back I guess her conscience hurt her for the way she had been carrying on in Chicago, and so when she heard the basement of the church was being frescoed, she invited the committee to hold the Wednesday evening prayer meeting at our house.  First, there were four people came, and Ma asked Pa to stay to make up a quorum, and Pa said seeing he had two pair, he guessed he would stay in, and if Ma would deal him a queen he would have a full hand.  I don’t know what Pa meant, but he plays draw poker sometimes.  Anyway there was eleven people came including the minister, and after they had talked about the neighbors a spell, and Ma had showed the women a new tidy she had worked for the heathen, with a motto on it which Pa had taught her:  ’A contrite heart beats a bob-tailed flush,’—­and Pa had talked to the men about a religious silver mine he was selling stock in, which he advised them as a friend to buy for the glory of the church, they all went in the back parlor and the minister lead in prayer.  He got down on his knees right under the parrot’s cage, and you’d a dide to see Polly hang on to the wires of the cage with one foot, and drop an apple core on the minister’s head.  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