whistling noise, like some jungle animal lost and wailing. It wasn't the sound of a baby.

Peter Horn had the nursery sound-proofed.

"So your wife won't hear your baby crying?" asked the workman.

"Yeah," said Pete Horn. "So she won't hear."

They had few visitors. They were afraid that by some accident or other someone might stumble on Py, dear sweet pyramidal little Py.

"What's that noise?" asked a visitor one evening, over his cocktail. "Sounds like some sort of bird. You didn't tell me you had an aviary, Peter?"

"Oh, yes," said Horn, going and closing the nursery door. "Have another drink. Let's get drunk, everybody."

It was like having a dog or a cat in the house. At least that's how Polly looked upon it. Pete Horn watched her and observed exactly how she talked and petted the small Py. It was Py this and Py that, but somehow with some reserve, and sometimes she would look around the room and touch herself, and her hands would clench, and she would look lost and afraid, as if she were waiting for someone to arrive.

In September, Polly reported to Pete: "He can say Daddy. Yes he can. Come on, Py. Say, Daddy!"

She held the blue warm pyramid up. "Wheelly," whistled the little warm blue pyramid.

"Daddy," repeated Polly.

"Wheelly!" whistled the pyramid.

"For heaven's sake, cut it out!" shouted Pete Horn. He took the child from her and put it in the nursery where it whistled over and over that name, that name, that name. Whistled, whistled. Horn came out and got himself a stiff drink. Polly was laughing quietly, bitterly.

"Isn't that terrific?" she said. "Even his voice is in the fourth dimension. I teach him to say Daddy and it comes out Wheelly! He says Daddy, but it sounds like Wheelly to us!" She looked at her husband. "Won't it be nice when he learns to talk later? We'll give him Hamlet's soliloquy to memorize and he'll say it but it'll come out, Wheelly-roth urll whee whistle wheet!" She 

 Prev. P 9/17 next