Then my troubles began. It seemed to take all of my time to feed this one bird, and I could not imagine how Jack and Jill could take care of it and four others.

For awhile it seemed very much frightened, but at length began to chirp. The old birds answered at once and soon came to the screen on the window and called to it. Knowing they would feed it if they could reach it I had to keep it away from them, for, should they discover it was a prisoner, they would give it poison.

We named it Chippy and it soon became a great pet. Whenever anyone entered the room where it was its mouth flew open, and from its shrill "chee-chee-chee," one might easily imagine it was on the verge of starvation.

When I had it a week it would try to fly from the floor to the lower rounds of a chair. When it had learned to fly, if left alone it would call until someone answered, and then follow the sound until it found them. I have known it to fly through two rooms, a downstairs hall, up the stair-steps, through the upper hall, and into my room in response to my whistle.

When it first made this journey it could fly only two or three feet at a time and had to fly from step to step up the stairway.

Soon after this I took Chippy out of doors. He was very much delighted when placed in a young hackberry tree, where he could fly from branch to branch. When he reached the top of the tree Jill flew into a tree near by and tried to coax him to come to her. I saw Chippy spread his wings and supposed I had lost my pet. Imagine my surprise when he gave a shrill scream and flew straight to me, lighting on my shoulder and nestling against my face.

Jill followed him, resting in a vine some three or four feet from me. When coaxing failed she flew away but soon returned with a grasshopper in her bill.

I drove Chippy away from me, hoping he would return to his own family, where his education could be carried on according to their ideas.

He flew into a tree, ate the grasshopper which Jill fed to him, and then flew on the roof of the porch outside my window, where he sat calling me. Going to my room I opened the screen to let him in, but this startled him and he flew away.

The sun had gone down by this time and I supposed he had at last returned to the nest. As I sat at the supper table I heard him calling to me and went outside.

He was in a tree in a neighbors yard, but when he saw me he at once flew down on my head, and it was comical to see him try to express his joy.

After that he spent his days among the trees, but at sunset always came to the house and slept in a box in my room.

Whenever he was hungry he would come to the window and call for food.

His favorite resting-place was on my shoulder or head and he seemed to be very fond of company.

One morning I saw Jack and Jill flying from tree to tree with him and that is the last I ever saw of any of them.