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Wonders of the Jungle

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<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> <h2>The Caged Parrot</h2> I shall finish this book by telling you a story—a true story, which, I hope, will make you think. Many years ago a sea captain returned to his home in the north of Scotland, after sailing the sea for a long time. He brought with him a parrot. The parrot had lived in South America, where the people speak the Spanish language. So all the words the parrot knew were in Spanish. The captain knew Spanish quite well, and often talked to the parrot in that language. But after a time the captain died, and there was nobody in that part of Scotland who could talk to the parrot. The parrot grew silent, and never opened his mouth to say a word. But he was thinking of his friend who was dead, and whose words in Spanish had reminded him of his sunny home. The people around him did not know that,[188] and thought nothing of his silence. So the parrot in his cold and bleak cage pined and pined for his sunny home land, but never a word did he say. Forty years passed, and a new set of people came to live there. They took no notice of the silent old parrot. They put food and drink in the cage, but knew nothing about him except that he had been in the cage for many years. For a parrot lives much longer than a man—sometimes one hundred years. One day a sailor came to the house. He had lived in South America, and knew Spanish. He saw the parrot sitting in his cage, all alone and silent, with his head bent down, and his beak on his breast. Then the sailor spoke to the parrot in Spanish. The parrot looked up, as if he had awakened from a long, long dream. Something reminded him of the days of his youth, when he was a happy bird flying about over the sunny fields of South America. Then he remembered the language of his youth, which he had not spoken for forty years. Suddenly he flapped his wings in joy, and spoke again. He spoke all the Spanish words he knew, one after another. He spoke to that[189] sailor as to a friend come to him from his own home land. He flapped his wings against the bars, and finally dropped to the floor of the cage, dead. He had died in the thought of his bygone happy days. My dear children, I am closing this book with this story, because I want you to learn a great lesson from it: be kind to all animals. I know that you would never willfully hurt any animal. But that is not enough. You may think that you are very kind to some creature, because you feed it and pet it; but all the same you may be very cruel, though you do not mean to be so. You may think it is great fun to have a pretty bird in a cage. But is it any fun for the bird? How would you like to be shut up in a cage all your life, instead of playing about in God's free air and living in your own home? The bird wants to fly about and live in his nest in his own home land. Think of that when you wish to put a bird in a cage. Children who are kind to all animals grow up to be men and women who are kind to other people. And it is only by being kind to others that we ourselves deserve to be happy and are happy.[190] Remember all that I have said, till I come back and talk to you again in the next book. Then I shall tell you many more Wonders of the Jungle. Till then, as they say in the Orient, God and His peace be with you! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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