I was always glad when Joe was absent from home, for he was vicious as well as rough. One of his favorite tricks was to dash my cage hard against the wall, laughing boisterously as he did so to see how it frightened me. The concussion was frequently so great that my claws could not hold to the perch, and I would be tossed helplessly from side to side with my feathers ruffled and broken. There was but one thing Joe liked better than this cruel sport, and that was gingerbread; and my tortures were often stopped by Betty's producing a slice of this delicacy which she had saved from her own luncheon for this particular purpose. When I discovered that Joe could be bought off with gingerbread it can be imagined that I was always glad on the days when the pungent odors of cinnamon, ginger, and molasses issued from the cook-stove. It was a surety of peace, of a cessation of hostilities as long as the cake lasted. All went fairly well for a little while, but as the novelty of possession gradually wore off, my little jailer grew negligent and left me much of the time without water or food. Frequently my throat was so parched from thirst that I could not utter a protesting chirp. I knew no other way to attract attention to my wants than to flutter to the bars and thrust out my head; unfortunately this action was attributed to wildness and a desire to escape, and I was allowed to suffer on. "That bird is the most annoying, restless thing I ever saw," complained Betty's mother one evening when I was thus trying to tell them my cup was empty. "It spends all its time poking its head through the wires or thrashing around in the cage, instead of getting up on its perch and behaving itself quietly as a decent bird should." "Do you reckon it's sick?" suggested Betty, and she came to my cage and looked at me attentively. "Reckon it's hungry, you mean," growled her father, who was in one corner of the kitchen cleaning his gun. "She never feeds it any more," commented the mother. "What's the use of keeping it? I'd wring its neck and be done with it. Betty don't keer a straw for it." "Yes, I do," cried the little girl. "I'll get it something to eat this very minute." These spasms of attention only lasted a day or two, however, when my young keeper would lapse into carelessness, and again I would be allowed to go with an empty crop and a dry throat. My beautiful plumage grew rusty from this irregularity and continual neglect, and although I am not a vain bird, my dingy appearance was a source of daily grief and mortification to me. When Betty was not too busy playing she sometimes hung my cage outside the door of the cottage, but often for days together through the pleasant summer I was left hanging in the kitchen, sometimes half-choked with smoke or dampened with steam. No wonder I drooped and ceased my cheerful song.