s, and legs; no, stop a moment,
they seem to be fastened in. Yes, so they are, but I know I can do it."

Uncle Joe held his pipe in his mouth with his teeth and rubbed his hands
with satisfaction, for he was as pleased with my imagined success as I
was, and as he looked on I pulled out the stuffing from the skin,
placing the wings here, the legs there, and the tail before me, while
the head with its white-irised glass eye was stuck upon a nail in the
wall just over the bench.

"I feel as sure as can be, uncle, that I could stuff one."

"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "_Wretch! wretch! wretch_! That's what Polly
would say if she could speak. See how you've pulled her to pieces."

I looked up as he spoke, and there was the head with its queer glass
eyes seeming to stare hard at me, and at the mess of skin and feathers
on the bench.

"Well, I have pulled her to pieces, haven't I, uncle?" I said.

"That you have, my boy," he said, chuckling, as if he thought it very
good fun.

"But I have learned how to stuff a bird, uncle," I said triumphantly.

"And are you going to stuff Polly again?" he asked, gazing at the ragged
feathers and skin.

I looked at him quite guiltily.

"I--I don't think I could put this one together again, uncle," I said.
"You see it was so ragged and torn before I touched it, and the feathers
are coming out all over the place. But I could do a fresh one. You see
there's nothing here but the skin. All the feathers are falling away."

"Yes," said my uncle, "and I know--"

"Know what, uncle?"

"Why, they do the skin over with some stuff to preserve it, and you'll
have to get it at the chemist's."

"Yes, uncle."

"And I don't know, Natty," he said, "but I think you might try and put
poor old Polly together again, for I don't feel quite comfortable about
her; you have made her in such a dreadful mess."

"Yes, I have, indeed, uncle," I said dolefully, for the eagerness was
beginning to evaporate.

"And your aunt was very fond of her, my boy, and she wouldn't like it if
she knew."

"But I'm afraid I couldn't put her together again now, uncle;" and then
I began to tremble, and my uncle leaped off his stool, and broke his
pipe: for there was my aunt's well-known step on the gravel, and
directly after we heard her cry:

"Joseph! Nathaniel! What are you both doing?" And I knew that I
should have to confess.

CHAPTER FIVE.

HOW MY UNCLE AND I PUT HUMPTY DUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN.

M