In the colorful jungle where I live, strange sounds fill the air—raindrops dance on leaves, and my friends chirp, buzz, and growl, sounding like they’re chatting over breakfast! You’re curious about me, right? Well, I’m Penny, a cheerful parrot with feathers as colorful as the rainbow, always eager to learn and explore.
This morning, as sunbeams trickled down through the leaves, I stumbled upon a peculiar box lying beside a sparkling stream. What could it be? Carefully, I picked it up with my beak. It was a brightly colored box with mesmerizing patterns on its surface. Four little wheels rested on the bottom, probably meaning it could roll. Exciting! I tried to roll it along the ground, but no matter how I pushed, it wouldn’t budge. So I used my sharp beak to pry it open. Inside lay the most puzzling puzzle pieces I had ever seen—large and small, odd shapes, and colorful. Some pieces gleamed in the sunlight and looked like shiny jewels; others were simple but intriguingly fashioned. There was even a piece shaped like a strange letter “J.”
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” I exclaimed. “This puzzle will be so much fun; I can hardly wait to assemble it! I’ll be famous among all my parrot pals!”
I quickly mixed the pieces together, and after a few minor beak scratches (which I soon healed with a bit of sunshine!), I gathered them scattered about my nest, ready to begin. This puzzle looked truly out of this world!
Suddenly, I heard footsteps—I mean, foot sounds, since my pals have no hands—but you know what I mean. It was Timmy the Tortoise. “Good day, Penny! What exciting secret are you planning today?” he asked, stretching his neck. I couldn’t wait to share the discoveries I had made.
I opened the box and proudly declared, “Look Timmy! I found this box down by the stream, and it has so many curious shapes inside. I just can’t wait to flex my beak on these pieces and see the picture they’ll form! But, interestingly enough, some pieces seem to gleam more in the sunlight while others feel different when touched; I really need to have a serious think about this puzzle!”
Timmy slowly approached the box with his kind eyes wide open in disbelief. “How can you be sure of that if you haven’t tried to fit them together yet? Why not try a few pieces out for size?”
“Humpf! I’m sure they won’t fit,” I replied.
“But you don’t know that for sure. ‘Better to think a thing over and do it than to spend an age thinking and never getting it done,” Timmy suggested wisely.
Well, I thought Timmy’s advice was not half bad, so I put my beak into the puzzle box and tried a piece—it didn’t fit. “This is awful!” I exclaimed. “It just won’t work.” So, out it went. I picked out another piece; it went in. It didn’t really go in; I should say it went about halfway; but nothing helpful ever happened.
“Probably that piece doesn’t go that way. Try turning it a few times; you never know till you try!”
Now, I normally dislike being told what to do. Therefore, be it said to Timmy’s credit that he spoke sharply, and yet I did try his suggestion and turned the piece a few times. But it was no good at all. I was quite out of patience. To have to turn about and about those awkward pieces nearly got the better of me! You never saw anything so silly. All the time it seemed to say, “You know every other thing there is to know! Why on earth don’t you know me?”
Once, when I took a nap, Timmy put his kind feet among the pieces, and turning a few, tried to fit the other piece into them, dumpling as he went along with great good nature.
When I awoke, I found that Timmy had fitted every piece neatly into the other. Oh, joy! We were both in transports at the sight of the excellent picture that now lay before us. It represented a large helpful Parrakeet serving tea to all the other parrots sitting pleased in trees that grew like umbrellas, their innumerable leaves making the most attractive parasol on a hot summer’s day. Most of the pieces were so shamelessly mismatched, the thing lay principally in knowing how to bring the current piece into touch with its neighbor, and this fact Timmy was quick to investigate each time he fitted a piece. But, of course, I did as he told me.
Sooner than we’d hoped, the puzzle was finished!
“That was nice,” said Timmy, licking his lips as if he had finished a very good meal, instead of a nearly impossible task.
“And oh! what a pretty picture of a parakeet! The pretty sun shining there too! How bright it is!” said Ruby the Hummingbird, who had just flown in.
“It is indeed lovely; but now we must put the pieces back in this box. You won’t believe how heavy they seem!” said Timmy.
Ruby and I laughed, but in our efforts to lift them, forget we had iron nails in our feet. All day long the three of us worked, but the box yawned wide open and gave us gleams of its red lining and white lid in its delight.
“Never, never shall we be able to close it,” I said.
“Better blow a few hot breath upon the pieces, then try again when they’re warm,” said Timmy, who was as wise as ever. So applying my hot beak to the pieces, I said, “Close, boxy-block!”
Over the lid went. We tried to keep it shut, but it bounced back on our heads, saying, “Don’t you try me! I’ll soon say diddle!” But a nail in Timmy’s foot came out accidentally by a twist as the box flew open, and I seized both the nail and a leaf I could not help noticing which said, “Be of use if you can.”
So, by fastening the leaf over the box with a strong touch of Timmy’s foot, I was able to keep it locked up. Little Ruby was quite in a quake with all the fun, and a burst of melodious song rang out from her little throat.
What fun we had, and how kind we tried to be to each other! If my parrot pals only knew how happy puzzles sometimes make tortoises who try to fit pieces together in a wily way! I endeavored to keep the puzzle hidden from other birds, but it was hard.
So that my Bird community didn’t forget how kind a tortoise could be, I had a holiday meeting, and at the last minute said as an afterthought, “If you like, I’ll give you a few nice puzzles to play with.”
No one thanked me, so I arranged this box openly to put them in.
“Tell us about the boxy-block and all the pieces, please,” begged a little Bruiser, who was always so well mannered.
Timmy spoke sharply to the other birds, one or two who were ashamed to be called black patches, all being red, green, blue or yellow, but not black, and said:—
“Say you’re sorry!”
“I’m victory; I’m beaten; I will say I’m sorry,” cried Pinderella, who turned greenish in trying to imitate the colors of the other birds, adding, “If Penny has forgiven me switching the pieces about to no good, I’m sure you children of the fish-ears will say you’re sorry too for poking when you didn’t mean to.”
Not one bird among our reminder hung back, for Penny was our paragon, and her friendly heart was a sounding-board for our silly squabbles.
So back we went to Timmy’s island again.
“Have you heard, Penny?” said curious Bell-bird. “All of the saucy birds generally flown far; and to an island, much as this seems like.”
“I think stupid natives must have dropped it here,” was the tortoise’s clever reply.
“But those natives wish to have their monoles gotten back again straight,” I said.
“Penny’s puzzle provides other puzzles,” asserted Timmy, who went weary home her to sleep instead of going back with us when taken there in a motor whilst others flew back alone.
Oh! what strange, old-fashioned things books are that put you in the middle of any, and yet so few fresh minds nowadays appreciate aright how nice it must always have seemed a thousand years ago to be turned without impatience by our tutors, if it were but to-day in the modern world because hardly any would know what kind of place each new locality spoken of is for those who don’t harken to seem understandings, and so think half their work is wasted?
Such pursuits as these when one begets a fresh idea in others through his pen-writing don’t exhaust anyone, though he must have wrought most keenly for hours together before, to prevent monotony by using another pen not to lose half his time over a torn one. For mind-stuff, like lung-stuff in reading, can’t wear certainly more no-one knew than the borrowed words, “while we beget, we are freshened, and while we are freshened, we are favored”; but such mental and bodily things were never meant really to exhaust, and had they, all learned men who travel in books must have certainly long since qualified for eternal rest, giving over prescriptions because fast asleep over every sleepy book the whole day.
I hope I have given you plenty of pleasant images, and yet only pleasant ones.