Polly was so lively on the way back to the city that Sonny Boy didn’t dare to take her into a passenger-car. The smoking-car happened to be almost empty, and the conductor said he would better go in there.

Polly didn’t like the empty smoking-car. She wished to be where there were plenty of people to admire her, and she showed her displeasure by making a dreadful noise. She barked and miaowed and cackled and crowed, and squealed and lowed and whinneyed and brayed and squawked and roared and growled, until one would have thought the smoking-car was nothing less than Noah’s Ark. A crowd of people came rushing into the car, and among them was a man who looked like a sailor, who insisted upon taking the covering from Polly’s cage and holding her up to the light.

“Belong to you?” he said. “Don’t want to sell her, do you?”

Sonny Boy’s heart gave a great leap. He was himself so very tired of Polly’s voice, and he had so dreaded to take her back to Aunt Kate, that it did not seem to him possible that any one could want her.

“She’s a handsome bird,” continued the man, “and hasn’t she got a voice! She isn’t exactly the bird for a home pet, but at a show she’d draw. And I belong to a show.”

The man seated himself beside Sonny Boy and spoke in a low tone. “‘The Wonder of the World’—that’s the name of the show that I belong to,” he said.

That was the very circus that had been at Poppleton the summer before, the one that Tom had been so much interested in!

“Oh, then, perhaps you know all about the Wild Man of Borneo!” cried Sonny Boy eagerly. “Have you ever seen him near to?”

The sailor looked confused, and there was a queer twinkle in his eye.

“I am some acquainted with the Wild Man,” he said slowly.

“Did he really come from Borneo? And is he truly wild?” asked Sonny Boy with eager curiosity.

“He is just about as wild as they make them,” said the man, wagging his head solemnly. And Sonny Boy’s heart thrilled with fear and wonder.

“We tried to play Wild Man in our barn,” he said to the man. “But none of the fellows knew how to be wild. Tom wanted me to find out how.”

The sailor drew near to Sonny Boy and lowered his voice to a whisper. “It wouldn’t do to let everybody know it, but if you and I are going to make a bargain about that parrot I don’t care if I tell you that I’m the Wild Man of Borneo, and I’ll show you just how I do it! I’ll give you twenty dollars for the parrot, and I’ll throw in the Wild Man business! I’ll do more than that—I’ll get you a chance to ride on the buffalo, in the procession, when the show comes to Bolton, this summer!”

Bolton was the town where the hospital was—the town they had just left. It would be easy to get to Bolton to the show.

Twenty dollars might be a small price for the parrot, but the secret of being a Wild Man and the chance to ride on a buffalo were extras that a boy could not easily resist! The parrot changed hands, and so did two ten-dollar bills. And the man gave Sonny Boy his address so that he might find him when the show came to Bolton.

“Aren’t you stuck up? Scat!” screamed Polly after Sonny Boy, by way of good-bye, when they parted at the city station.

Sonny Boy was very penitent when he found, on reaching home, that his absence had made Aunt Kate very anxious. She said a dreadful thing; she said that she never could trust Sonny Boy again!

But Sonny Boy knew she would find out that he wasn’t the kind of a boy that runs away. He thought it was enough to make any boy lose his mind to change his white mice for that parrot!

Aunt Kate thought that twenty dollars was a plenty for the parrot! She said she would see about the extras. She didn’t seem to understand the advantages of learning to be a Wild Man or of riding on a buffalo.

But she said she thought of taking a house at Bolton for the summer, while her husband was away at the war; it was seashore, and it was also near the city, where she could hear the war-news soon.

And then Sonny Boy felt sure that he should not miss his extra pay for the parrot.

His sister Polly would not think that a boy ought to want to ride on a buffalo; she would say that none of the Plummers had ever done such a thing. But Aunt Kate was different.

“There are other things I want, Aunt Kate,” said Sonny Boy suddenly, and he stood as tall as he could before his aunt—so tall that his shoulders scarcely stooped and his bow-legs were almost straight. “I’ve got to have them!” Sonny Boy’s red cheeks grew quite pale and his voice was gruff with feeling.

“Why, Sonny Boy dear, what can the things be that you want so much!” said Aunt Kate wonderingly.

“Spelling and fractions,” said Sonny Boy firmly.

“You dear boy! I never heard of a boy who thought so much of his lessons as that!” exclaimed Aunt Kate.

“It’s to show another fellow—stupider than I am,” said Sonny Boy. “And crookeder. I’ve got to get straight and be a soldier, too, to show him how.” And he told her about Otto.

Aunt Kate hugged him and laughed a little and cried a little. And she said it was a beautiful idea and he should have a tutor so that he could learn spelling and fractions very fast. And he should go to a gymnasium and straighten his shoulders and his legs. And his uncle would take him to camp to see the soldiers drill.

And she would buy him some more white mice. But that last offer Sonny Boy declined. He wanted no white mice but those! And he didn’t want those, because he liked better to have Otto and the poor invalid children have them.

It was quite wonderful to see how Sonny Boy learned spelling and fractions. The tutor was surprised, and what the Poppleton schoolmistress would have thought no one can even guess! For Sonny Boy had been dull at his lessons.

And presently he straightened himself out in the most surprising way, and learned to drill soldiers like a major. He had a fine military company, in the “almost well” room of the children’s ward at the hospital. The officers sent word to Aunt Kate that he was a very welcome visitor and did the children great good.

He bought a drum and fife with the parrot money, and sent them to the Poppleton Guards, the company to which “the fellows didn’t want him to belong.” And he wrote a letter to the Guards, telling them about the military tactics that he had learned at the camp, where his uncle had taken him.

“How quickly you have learned!” said Aunt Kate one day. “You are the very brightest one of the Plummers.”

But Sonny Boy shook his head. “I never could learn until ’twas for another fellow,” he said.

“Anyway, you’re the dearest one of the Plummers!” said Aunt Kate, with a hug. By this time they were at Bolton for the summer, and they awoke one morning to find the place gay with show-bills and huge placards.

The “Wonder of the World” was coming to town. Among the attractions were the “Wild Man of Borneo,” fresh from his native jungles, and “The Monster Tuscarora,” the greatest buffalo in the world.

“‘HOW QUICKLY YOU HAVE LEARNED,’ SAID AUNT KATE.”