he had asked his mother where the bird came from and when she said africa he had understood it was doomed to die in the cage where it lived , far away from wherever god had meant it to be , and he cried and his mother bought him an ice-cream cone and for awhile he had stopped crying and then he remembered and started again and so she had taken him home , telling him as they rode the trolley back to lynn that he was a bawl-baby and a sissy .