Augusta Huiell Seaman - The Curious Affair at Heron Shoals (Augusta Huiell Seaman) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

And how badly Methuselah had behaved at the beginning of the meal! He had squawked and screeched and demanded a cracker with such an ear-splitting racket that Mrs. Greene had finally removed him, perch and all, to the darkness of the dining-room, where he immediately became silent. Marty noticed that Ted had been watching him with interested eyes and a distinct smile. But when he was gone, the boy’s face fell into its usual serious expression.

There had been one curious little occurrence after the meal was over. When the dishes were removed and Marty was washing them, all the new-comers had insisted on helping to dry and put them away, much to Mrs. Greene’s disapproval. But they had made it a rather hilarious occasion, even Ted joining the affair, and were laughing and joking like old comrades before the task was finished. Then, at Ted’s request, Marty brought the parrot in once more and let Ted give him his supper of rice and sliced banana. While he was eating it, Mr. Burnett had remarked:

“This parrot interests me very much, Mrs. Greene. And, by the way, he isn’t a true parrot. He is of the parrot family, but is really a macaw. His brilliant blue and yellow plumage is quite different from that of the common green parrot. This type comes from central Brazil and is uncommonly intelligent and usually very long-lived. Sometimes they are said to live as long as seventy-five or eighty years. And they have wonderful memories, too, I understand. This Methuselah’s name is very appropriate for I think he is quite an old bird. How long have you had him, Mrs. Greene?”

It had seemed such a simple question—one to which an ordinary answer might have been simply returned. But to the surprise of every one but Marty, Mrs. Greene’s wrinkled countenance had flushed, and she had answered hesitantly and a bit grudgingly, “Oh, about twenty-five years or so, I guess!” And before any further queries could be put, she had hurried out of the kitchen mumbling something to the effect that she must “see to some things upstairs.” Mr. Burnett had then turned to Marty herself and remarked,

“Your grandmother doesn’t seem to care to talk much about Thusy’s past, does she! I hope I haven’t offended her by asking too many questions.”

“Oh, Nana’s always been like that about Thusy!” she had replied. “There must be some secret about that bird that she doesn’t want to talk about. She won’t even to me, when I’ve asked questions.”

“Well, then, we mustn’t annoy her by asking any more of them,” Mr. Burnett had said, considerately. Marty noticed that Ted had been listening wide-eyed to this exchange of remarks, but the boy offered no comment and turned to the Professor who was standing in front of Thusy, chattering softly to the parrot in French. And Thusy was listening with bright unwinking gaze, and head cocked to one side, as if the little Frenchman’s remarks interested him tremendously.

“Zis bird, he understand zee French, I know he do!” declared the Professor, running his hands excitedly through his white hair. “He leesten like he has heard eet before, many, many time, but long ago. Now see! I try to expereement, I try to make heem say somesing after me!”

He placed himself squarely in front of the parrot’s perch, looking the bird straight in the eye and began slowly and distinctly:

“Bon jour, Thusy! Bon jour, bon jour, bon jour!” The parrot looked at him intently with his bright eyes unwinking, as if trying hard to understand. Then he began a low mumbling, as if to himself, and the sound he made certainly resembled something like “bum-bum-bum-bum.” They all listened in a breathless silence, till the Professor whispered:

“Wait!—I theenk he ees getting eet. He perhaps say somesing!” And Methuselah did. After a long moment of silence, he suddenly stood erect on his perch, flapped his wings and screeched at the Professor:

“Go fly a kite!” Then he turned his back insultingly, tucked his head under his wing and prepared to go to sleep for the night.

A peal of laughter from Ted greeted this unexpected reply—the first time Marty had heard him really laugh, and they all joined in, even the discomfited Professor Aubert.

“That was dreadful!” cried Marty. “Somebody must have taught him that. He says it every once in a while—and always where it comes in just right. But it did sound awful—and after all the trouble you took, Professor!” The Professor did look rather crestfallen, but continued to insist that he was right and would prove it later. But Mr. Burnett said,

“No more of this now! I hear Mrs. Greene coming downstairs.” And the subject was dropped for the night.

Marty thought it all over, lying on her lumpy bed and suddenly an idea popped into her mind. So startling was it that she sat straight up in bed muttering, “The very thing!—Why didn’t I think of it before?—Ted’s interested in that parrot, not only because he’s an unusual bird but because there’s some mystery about him. That settles it! I’m going to get Ted even more interested in Thusy and the mystery and perhaps we can both solve it together. I always did want to know what it was all about, anyway. And perhaps it’ll help Ted to—forget for a while!”

She lay down again in a pleasant sort of content and tried to plan how she would go about it. And presently she fell asleep.

MARTY and Ted sat together on a high, steep dune overlooking the sea. It was a warm, golden, perfect afternoon—the type of weather that often comes to the coast in the early fall. The sea before them was a vivid floor of green-blue, with only small wavelets lapping in at the water’s edge—an ideal day for surf-casting. Swooping gulls, silhouetted against the intensely blue sky, gleamed with an unbelievable whiteness. The air was pungent with the odor of salt and pine and cedar, wafted by the light west wind from across the Bay.

Marty had just strolled out to the beach after having finished helping Mrs. Greene with some preparations for supper. It being Sunday, Hetty Boscom had gone home directly after the dinner-dishes were disposed of. Marty found Ted sitting on the dune watching his father and Monsieur who were both down by the sea’s edge, intent on casting long fishing-lines far out beyond the overfall. Monsieur had been eager to learn the fine art of surf-casting, and Mr. Burnett was engaged in his instruction. Ted was idly watching the performance, his serious little face still bearing its usual, wistful expression. But Marty, as she slipped down beside him, noted that he had lost his pallid color, though he had only been there two days, and that his nose had a distinctly sunburned tinge. She had observed also that he was beginning to be slightly interested in his meals. Plainly the sun, the sea and the salt air were beginning their salutary work.

“But he isn’t any different in his mind yet!” thought Marty. “If only he could be more really cheerful—and not just politely pretend to be when he isn’t! I wish I could find the chance to get him interested in the mystery about Thusy. Maybe this is a good time. We’ve all been too busy since Friday when they first arrived.”

“The Professor is doing very well with his casting, isn’t he!” she remarked, as Ted looked up to greet her with a slight smile.

“He has strong arms and I s’pose that must help,” said Ted, as they watched Monsieur reel in a long cast and prepare to hurl it out again. But even as they watched—something went wrong! The Professor had just swung his rod back over his shoulder and then far forward to give the metal squid on the end of the line momentum enough to carry it far out into the sea, when a sudden tangling up of his line at the tip of the pole caught it—and held it fast. His reel, however, with hundreds of feet of line on it, went right on spinning out the line, which, having no outlet through the tip of the pole, came billowing around him in yards and yards of hopeless tangle. And in an instant he stood there with a mess of line like a great wuzzey ball in his astonished hands.