Iowa
Old Press
Sioux City Journal
Sioux City, Woodbury co. Iowa
Saturday, May 31, 1930
LE MARS WOMAN'S PARROT SPEAKS LATIN, TALKS IN MILITARY
LINGO, AND ASKS HIS VISITORS TO PRAY
As the visitor went up the steps of John Ruble's home to
interview Gypsy Boy, Miss Mona Hoard's famous parrot, he heard a
sweet boyish voice chanting in stately Gregorian measures:
"Ora pro nobis; Ora pro nobis! Laus Del Ora pro nobis!"
A second later came a harsh squawk.
"All hands on deck! Stand by to repel boarders! Awk!"
Then a flutelike whistle, and, "Monaah!
Monnah!"
Miss Hoard came downstairs, called by the bird and her mother,
Mrs. Virginia Ruble. Mr. Ruble, veteran of the civil war, lifted
his hand in greeting. As Miss Hoard also is president of the W.
R. C., the soldierly greeting added note of a military atmosphere
to the house, which is a repository of military history, holding
a fine collection of photographs of friends and relatives who
served in the civil, the Spanish-American and the world war. The
parrot sensed this, and sliding out with the broken arched,
pigeon toed gait peculiar to parrots, cocked an eye at the
visitor and barked:
"Attention! Pre - e - t t y boy! Good boy!"
"He refers to himself," Miss Hoard explained.
"Yes, I know," said the visitor, somewhat stiffly.
"Dominus vobiscum," remarked the parrot.
"He seems to be talking Latin.²
"Yes, he belonged to a priest before I got him. He knows
many pious things.
The parrot shrieked, "Hey, big boy. You go to heck!"
His owner bent a stern eye on him, and Gypsy Boy broke all
records getting under the table. He peeped out with one beady eye
end whined:
"No washing! No washing! Pretty Boy!"
"He expects to get his beak washed out with soap and water
after that
remark," Miss Hoard explained grimly. "He will, too,
when you're gone."
"Awk Let us pray!" Gypsy Boy came out again, and
climbed expertly to his owner's shoulder, where he nibbled at one
of his toenails. He ruffled his feathers, rather pale after the
long winter, and closed one eye.
"Blessed be they," he rasped solemnly "who sit on
a red hot stove." Again that sweet-flutelike whistle, Gypsy
Boy is about 50 years old, and his normal life expectancy in this
climate is about 25 years more, although in the jungles of his
native South America he easily could live to be 100. He has lived
well and tolerantly, has spoken his mind freely, and has no
suppressed desire.
"Gypsy Boy,'" said the visitor as he prepared to leave,
"what would you recommend for this South American parrot
fever, psittacosis, that everybody is talking about?"
"Whisky!" the bird husked hopefully.
[transcribers note: There is a photograph of Miss Hoard with
Gypsy Boy on her shoulder included with this article -
transcribed by M.H., March 2010]