Nat the Naturalist | Page 8

think so," he said dreamily. "You couldn't spoil it,
could you?"
"Why, it is spoiled already, Uncle Joe," I said.
"Yes, my boy, so it is; quite spoiled. I think I'll risk it, Nat."
"But if aunt would be very cross, uncle, hadn't I better leave it?" I said.
"If you didn't take it, Nat, she would never see it again, and it would lie
here and moulder away. I think you had better take it, my boy."
I was so eager to begin that I hesitated no more, but took the bird out
into the tool-house, where I could make what aunt called "a mess"
without being scolded, and uncle put on his smoking-cap, lit his pipe,
and brought a high stool to sit upon and watch me make my first
attempt at mastering a mystery.
The first thing was to take Polly off her perch, which was a piece of
twig covered with moss, that had once been glued on, but now came
away in my hands, and I found that the bird had been kept upright by
means of wires that ran down her legs and were wound about the twig.

Uncle smoked away as solemnly as could be, while I went on, and he
seemed to be admiring my earnestness.
"There's wire up the legs, uncle," I cried, as I felt about the bird.
"Oh! is there?" he said, condescendingly.
"Yes, uncle, and two more pieces in the wings."
"You don't say so, Nat!"
"Yes, uncle, and another bit runs right through the body from the head
to the tail; and--yes--no--yes--no--ah, I've found out how it is that the
tail is spread."
"Have you, Nat?" he cried, letting his pipe out, he was so full of
interest.
"Yes, uncle; there's a thin wire threaded through all the tail feathers,
just as if they were beads."
"Why, what a boy you are!" he cried, wonderingly.
"Oh, it's easy enough to find that out, uncle," I said, colouring. "Now
let's see what's inside."
"Think there's anything inside, Natty, my boy?"
"Oh yes, uncle," I said; "it's full of something. Why, it's tow."
"Toe, my boy!" he said seriously, "parrot's toe?"
"T-o-w. Tow, uncle, what they use to clean the lamps. I can stuff a bird,
uncle, I know."
"Think you can, Natty?"
"Yes, to be sure," I said confidently. "Why, look here, it's easy to make
a ball of tow the same shape as an egg for the body, and then to push

wires through the body, and wings, and legs; no, stop a moment, they
seem to be fastened in. Yes, so they are, but I know I can do it."
Uncle Joe held his pipe in his mouth with his teeth and rubbed his
hands with satisfaction, for he was as pleased with my imagined
success as I was, and as he looked on I pulled out the stuffing from the
skin, placing the wings here, the legs there, and the tail before me,
while the head with its white-irised glass eye was stuck upon a nail in
the wall just over the bench.
"I feel as sure as can be, uncle, that I could stuff one."
"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "Wretch! wretch! wretch! That's what Polly
would say if she could speak. See how you've pulled her to pieces."
I looked up as he spoke, and there was the head with its queer glass
eyes seeming to stare hard at me, and at the mess of skin and feathers
on the bench.
"Well, I have pulled her to pieces, haven't I, uncle?" I said.
"That you have, my boy," he said, chuckling, as if he thought it very
good fun.
"But I have learned how to stuff a bird, uncle," I said triumphantly.
"And are you going to stuff Polly again?" he asked, gazing at the
ragged feathers and skin.
I looked at him quite guiltily.
"I--I don't think I could put this one together again, uncle," I said. "You
see it was so ragged and torn before I touched it, and the feathers are
coming out all over the place. But I could do a fresh one. You see
there's nothing here but the skin. All the feathers are falling away."
"Yes," said my uncle, "and I know--"
"Know what, uncle?"

"Why, they do the skin over with some stuff to preserve it, and you'll
have to get it at the chemist's."
"Yes, uncle."
"And I don't know, Natty," he said, "but I think you might try and put
poor old Polly together again, for I don't feel quite comfortable about
her; you have made her in such a dreadful mess."
"Yes, I have, indeed, uncle," I said dolefully, for the eagerness was
beginning to evaporate.
"And your aunt was very fond of her, my boy,