“It hasn’t got no head!  If it had a head, where would be the sense in hangin’ it high a tall?  It’s your good luck, Mrs. Lathrop, ’t it hasn’t got no head, for the man said ’t if it had a head it would ‘a’ brought four or five dollars easy.”

Mrs. Lathrop got up and went out into the hall to seek her parrot.  When she brought it in and examined it by the light of the lamp, her expression became more than dubious.

“What did you get for your—­” she asked at last.

“I didn’t get nothin’.  I didn’t see nothin’ ’t I wanted, ‘n’ I learned long ago ’t an auction ‘s generally a good place f’r buyin’ things ’t you don’t want after you’ve bought ’em.  Now take that parrot o’ yours!—­I wouldn’t have him ’f you was to offer him to me for a gift; not to speak o’ his not havin’ no head, he looks to me like he had moths in him,—­you look at him by daylight to-morrow ‘n’ see if it don’t strike you so too.”

Mrs. Lathrop was silent for a long time.  Finally she said: 

“Did you go to the Orphan Asylum?”

“Well—­no—­I did n’t.  I would ‘a’ gone only I got on the wrong car ‘n’ ended in a cemetery instead.  I had a nice time there, though, walkin’ roun’ ‘n’ readin’ ages, an’ jus’ as I was goin’ out I met a monument man ’t had a place right outside the gate, ‘n’ he took me to look at his things, ‘n’ then I remembered father—­two years dead ‘n’ not a stone on him yet!”

Mrs. Lathrop laid the parrot aside with a heavy sigh and concentrated all her attention upon her friend’s recital.

“The man was about ’s pleasant a man ’s ever I met.  When I told him about father, he told me he took a interest in every word, whether I bought a monument of him or not.  He said he’d show me all he had ‘n’ welcome ‘n’ it was no trouble but a joy.  Then he took me all through his shop ‘n’ the shed behind, ‘n’ really I never had a nicer time.  I see a lamb lyin’ down first, ‘n’ I thought ’t that would be nice f’r a little, but the further back we went the finer they got.  The man wanted me to take a eagle grippin’ a pen ‘n’ writin’ father’s name on a book ‘t he’s sittin’ on to hold open while he writes.  I told him ’f I bought any such monument I cert’nly would want the name somewhere else than up where no one but the eagle could read it.  He said ’t I could have the name below ‘n’ let the eagle be writin’ ’Repose in Peace,’ but I told him ‘t father died of paralysis after bein’ in bed for twenty years ‘n’ that his idea o’ Heaven wasn’t reposin’ in peace,—­he always looked forward to walkin’ about ‘n.’ bein’ pretty lively there.  Then the man said ‘t maybe suthin’ simple would be more to my taste, ‘n’ he took me to where there was a pillow with a wreath of roses on it, but—­my gracious, I’d never be so mean ’s to put a pillow anywhere near father after all them years in bed, ‘n’ as to the roses they’d be jus’ ’s bad or worse, for you know yourself how they give him hay-fever so ’s we had to dig up all the bushes years ago.