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Page 63
"Pippity, what's that?"
He would tell me immediately; and I laughed outright when, one day, as
we were strolling through the forest, I stumbled over a stone, and the
parrot, perching on it, pecked it with his bill, and then, looking up
at me askance, asked:
"What's that?"
That was a phrase I had unwittingly taught him. And now I began more
than ever to perceive his extraordinary genius.
Thenceforth it was "What's that?" and "What's that?" and actually the
fellow wanted to learn more quickly than I could teach.
Once, after this intelligent bird had been with me for some months, we
were sitting quietly in our domicile, shaded from the afternoon sun by
our lofty rock-built palace, enjoying the beauties of creation, when
all at once he broke out in his clear, melodious voice:
"Tell me something new!"
I looked at him in amazement. I had never taught him to say that; but
undoubtedly he must have heard me say, at some time or other, "Pippity,
now I will tell you something new." Yet how the bird had managed to
turn the phrase grammatically to himself puzzled me not a little.
However, I soon began to teach him something else that was new, for I
had been thinking that it was time that he should learn the names of
the plants,--at least of the most interesting and useful. So it was not
long before Pippity had a fair acquaintance with botany.
Nearly a year had now rolled round, when one day Pippity was missing.
What could have happened to him? Had he grown tired of my society? Did
he begin to think that, after all, savage freedom was to be preferred
to dull, systematic civilization? Had he come to the conclusion that
much learning is, at best, but vanity? Did he want to go babbling again
in chaotic gibberish rather than to talk smoothly by rote?
Two days passed, in which to drive away any natural feeling of
loneliness at the parrot's absence, I set down notes as concisely as
possible of what had occurred to me so far. For this purpose I used the
point of my knife and thin slabs of mica, wishing to save the small
stock of memorandum paper in my note-book and journals as much as I
could. At other times I had used bark and similar things to write on,
but the mica was more durable, and more easily stowed away. It was my
intention to make a still more condensed series of notes on the paper I
had by me, whenever I should feel like undertaking the task. The juice
of berries would serve for ink, and a feather or light reed would make
as good a pen as I should want. This plan I carried out afterward.
[Illustration]
On the third day Pippity returned, and, as he came flying into the
palace, "Pippity, Pippity!" I cried, "I thought you were never coming
back. Have you been to see your old friends?" He hung his head
demurely, and said nothing.
Although I had told Pippity, when he had first sought my hospitality,
that I would shed no tears over his departure, if at any time he might
see fit to leave me, I must confess that I was very glad when he came
back. His society was agreeable. He was a good listener, and he was by
no means an idler, as far as that kind of honorable work is concerned
which consists in keeping body and soul together. For example,
strolling through our fertile garden, if I should happen to see some
fine fruit high on a tree, Pippity would fly up to it at my bidding,
and, cutting its stem with his bill, would quickly bring it to the
ground.
"Pippity," I would say, "do you see that extra fine bunch of bananas up
there? Now, do you go up and cut the stalk, while I stand below and
catch the luscious treasure on this soft bed of leaves."
And, before I would be done speaking, Pippity would already be pretty
well advanced with his work. For getting nuts, and such fruit as it was
desirable to take carefully from plants at great heights, his services
were invaluable.
It is a remarkable fact that, although we had such an abundance of
tropical fruits, as well as a large proportion of temperate
productions, on our domain, the cocoa-nut was not one of them. I
remembered that, in coming up from the lake, I had seen large numbers
of cocoa-nut trees growing on the small flat at which I first arrived
about nine hundred feet below the level of our palace plateau.
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