On a sunny day on a tropical island, I sat with my friends, the wise old parrot and the cheerful little finch. We were discussing our dreams, and that’s when I shared my heartfelt desire to fly to a faraway island.
“But Polly,” exclaimed the finch, “you live here. How can you dream of flying to another island?”
Listening to her, I felt a little ashamed and silent for some time. Then I said, “Oh, yes! A little bird like you can never understand the longing of a bigger bird!”
“But I do know what it is,” she insisted. “Tell me, Polly, what is the actual happiness you are missing on this island?”
“It’s freedom I miss,” I said. “Red and yellow birds come here every day to eat the fruits of our palms. They are so beautiful, and no one ever dreams of tying them. Oh, if we could but fly away like them to the mainland or even to any distant spot in the ocean!”
“But to fly away and remain free, you must try your wings, dear Polly,” said the old parrot. “In the evening, when it is cooler, you can take a turn or two up in the air, just to strengthen your limbs.”
This idea made me very happy, and when evening came, I flew round the garden. But I could not see my way to another island yet, for a little way before me appeared our palm trees red with the last rays of the sun. It appeared to me as if they served the same purpose as the yard for my cage.
Next morning the finch told all the small birds what I had said the day before. She wanted me to speak to them myself, but I thought it was nothing to me, if others did not understand it.
In the course of the afternoon, however, when I was roaming restlessly round my master, they all came hopping towards me. The more talkative ones said, “Polly has made a speech. Polly wants to fly, so she says she is only a prisoner like us. Yet we do not want to speak a word. Her mistress feels so sorry for her that she places so many pearls on her beak in a plate that she need not be looked at.”
Hitherto I had only pulled the pearl necklace off their beaks at night, but next morning for once filled my beak with six of the finest pearls, and running after the small birds, buried a pearl for each and every one of them, as an apology for the remarks I had made the day before.
That same day, whilst hanging to the perch, a burst of laughter attracted my attention. When I turned my head in its direction, I saw four red and yellow birds come running one after the other, making their feathers ruffle as if by command. Their fine long tail-coverts nearly brushed the ground while hopping, and their delicate wings were opened out in such a way that they looked like a lady’s fan.
“We hear, Polly,” they said, “that you are an oppressed mayor bird, and imprisoned like ourselves. Besides we are so light that our shadow will barely cover you. Read over what we have before, and then crawled upon our backs like good men, we shall be happy to carry you to any other point of the inhabited world.”
I was a little ashamed at that. “Oh no, thank you very much!” I exclaimed, so politely as not to hurt their feelings. “But no, I am a free bird - as you see - and round the island I beg to fly vountarily.”
So saying, I hopped off the perch and flew to the foot of the house.
I now flew about undisturbed and bewildered my master left the room I shook hele after when I heard just a scratch of footsteps outside. Overhead were the trees of the neighbouring garden twisting and waving over one another, behind me stood my pretty mistress looking at me from under her wide-brimmed straw hat with concealed rifles. I did not stay much longer, but flew behind the sandy bank close to the water’s edge, to eat some hearty meal of fruits and flowers which had been sent me, with the addidas of an imaginary worm.