Right glad was I, after what seemed a long, long time of jarring and jolting, to find the cage once more swinging from his hand and to hear the click of his boot heels on the pavements as we went through the streets of the town where Polly lived.

CHAPTER X

A NEW HOME

Should it happen that the last egret is shot and the last bird of paradise is snared to adorn a lady’s dress, then—­then I would not like to be a woman for all that earth could hold.—­Herbert O. Ward.

When at last my covering was removed I found myself in a large, long room, which I afterward learned was a millinery store.  In fact the store was the front part of the family residence, the living rooms being behind and upstairs over it.  My cage was hung near the wide doorway at the end of the apartment and my new mistress at once ran to fill my cup with fresh water and bring me a supply of clean millet.  After I had refreshed myself I began to look about me and study my strange surroundings.

My new home was so unlike the little log house in the South from which I had come that it was many days before I could accustom myself to the clatter of voices which buzzed monotonously all day through the store.  From ten o’clock in the morning, if the day were fine, till three in the afternoon, the din at times was almost deafening; for it was the busy season and customers were constantly coming and going, not all of them to buy, merely to look over the ribbons and tumble up the goods, as I heard the tired clerks say complainingly more than once.

Numerous glass cases were placed near the walls, and running cross-wise were a counter and shelves much frequented by ladies who stood eagerly examining the array of bright gauzes, the glittering buckles, the flowers and plumes displayed there.  And what a chattering they kept up!  What a stir and a hubbub they made!  So many “Oh-h’s” and “Ah-h’s,” so many “How lovely’s,” and other ecstatic exclamations, were mingled with their conversation as was quite bewildering.  In time, however, I became accustomed to this and discovered it was simply a way ladies have of expressing their approval of things in general.  Around the glass cases which held the trimmed hats the women buzzed like a swarm of flies, their volubility assuming a more emphatic character as they gazed within at the fashionable headgear placed on long steel wires.  Almost every hat held one, or a part of one, of my slaughtered race.  Frequently there were parts of two or three varieties on one hat—­a tail of one kind, a wing of another, or a head of a different species.  The ends of the world had been searched to make this patchwork of blood.  The women raved over the cruel display; they gloated over our beauty; but they cared nothing for the pathetic story the hats told of rifled nests and motherless young.