THE WICKED PARROT
Reading edition
A gentleman who spent part of a summer recently in England relates an incident which very sadly disturbed the religious peace of a parish in Penzance.
A gentleman, his wife and his mother-in-law lived together. They had a parrot. And the parrot had somehow and somewhere—they could not imagine how or where—picked up the very disagreeable habit of remarking at frequent intervals:
“Wisht the old woman were dead. Wisht the old woman were dead.” This annoyed the good people of the house very much, and they at last ventured to speak to the curate about it.
“I think we can rectify the matter,” replied the good man. “I also have a parrot, and he is a very righteous bird, having been brought up in the way he should go. I will lend you my parrot, and I trust his good influence will soon reform that depraved bird of yours.”
The curate’s parrot was placed in the same room with the wicked one, and as soon as the two had become accustomed to each other, the bad bird remarked:
“Wisht the old woman were dead.”
Whereupon the clergyman’s bird rolled up his eyes, and in solemn accents responded:
“We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.”
The story got out in the parish, and for several Sundays it was thought expedient to omit the Litany at the church services.