Animals talk to each other,
of course. There can be no question about
that; but I suppose there
are very few people who can understand them.
I never knew but one man
who could. I knew he could, however, because he
told me so himself. He was
a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had
lived in a lonely corner of
California, among the woods and mountains,
a good many years, and had
studied the ways of his only neighbors, the
beasts and the birds, until
he believed he could accurately translate
any remark which they made.
This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker,
some animals have only a
limited education, and some use only simple
words, and scarcely ever a
comparison or a flowery figure; whereas,
certain other animals have
a large vocabulary, a fine command of
language and a ready and
fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk
a great deal; they like it;
they are so conscious of their talent,
and they enjoy
"showing off." Baker said, that after long and careful
observation, he had come to
the conclusion that the bluejays were the
best talkers he had found
among birds and beasts. Said he:
"There's more TO a
bluejay than any other creature. He has got more
moods, and more different
kinds of feelings than other creatures; and,
mind you, whatever a
bluejay feels, he can put into language. And
no mere commonplace
language, either, but rattling, out-and-out
book-talk--and bristling
with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as for
command of language--why
YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word.
No man ever did. They just
boil out of him! And another thing: I've
noticed a good deal, and
there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses
as good grammar as a
bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well,
a cat does--but you let a
cat get excited once; you let a cat get to
pulling fur with another
cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar
that will give you the
lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the NOISE
which fighting cats make
that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's
the sickening grammar they
use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad
grammar but very seldom;
and when they do, they are as ashamed as a
human; they shut right down
and leave.
"You may call a jay a
bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--but he's got
feathers on him, and don't
belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise
he is just as much human as
you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's
gifts, and instincts, and
feelings, and interests, cover the whole
ground. A jay hasn't got
any more principle than a Congressman. A jay
will lie, a jay will steal,
a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and
four times out of five, a
jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The
sacredness of an obligation
is such a thing which you can't cram into
no bluejay's head. Now, on
top of all this, there's another thing; a
jay can out-swear any
gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear.
Well, a cat can; but you
give a bluejay a subject that calls for his
reserve-powers, and where
is your cat? Don't talk to ME--I know too much
about this thing; in the
one little particular of scolding--just good,
clean, out-and-out
scolding--a bluejay can lay over anything, human or
divine. Yes, sir, a jay is
everything that a man is. A jay can cry,
a jay can laugh, a jay can
feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and
discuss, a jay likes gossip
and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humor,
a jay knows when he is an
ass just as well as you do--maybe better. If
a jay ain't human, he
better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going
to tell you a perfectly
true fact about some bluejays."
CHAPTER III
Baker's Bluejay Yarn
[What Stumped the Blue
Jays]
"When I first begun to
understand jay language correctly, there was a
little incident happened
here. Seven years ago, the last man in this
region but me moved away.
There stands his house--been empty ever since;
a log house, with a plank
roof--just one big room, and no more; no
ceiling--nothing between
the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sunday
morning I was sitting out
here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking
the sun, and looking at the
blue hills, and listening to the leaves
rustling so lonely in the
trees, and thinking of the home away yonder in
the states, that I hadn't
heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejay
lit on that house, with an
acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, I
reckon I've struck
something.' When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of
his mouth and rolled down
the roof, of course, but he didn't care; his
mind was all on the thing
he had struck. It was a knot-hole in the roof.
He cocked his head to one
side, shut one eye and put the other one to
the hole, like a possum
looking down a jug; then he glanced up with
his bright eyes, gave a
wink or two with his wings--which signifies
gratification, you
understand--and says, 'It looks like a hole, it's
located like a hole--blamed
if I don't believe it IS a hole!'
"Then he cocked his
head down and took another look; he glances up
perfectly joyful, this
time; winks his wings and his tail both, and
says, 'Oh, no, this ain't
no fat thing, I reckon! If I ain't in luck!
--Why it's a perfectly
elegant hole!' So he flew down and got that
acorn, and fetched it up
and dropped it in, and was just tilting his
head back, with the
heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a
sudden he was paralyzed
into a listening attitude and that smile faded
gradually out of his
countenance like breath off'n a razor, and the
queerest look of surprise
took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn't
hear it fall!' He cocked
his eye at the hole again, and took a long
look; raised up and shook
his head; stepped around to the other side of
the hole and took another
look from that side; shook his head again. He
studied a while, then he
just went into the Details--walked round and
round the hole and spied
into it from every point of the compass.
No use. Now he took a
thinking attitude on the comb of the roof and
scratched the back of his
head with his right foot a minute, and finally
says, 'Well, it's too many
for ME, that's certain; must be a mighty long
hole; however, I ain't got
no time to fool around here, I got to "tend
to business"; I reckon
it's all right--chance it, anyway.'
"So he flew off and
fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and tried
to flirt his eye to the
hole quick enough to see what become of it,
but he was too late. He
held his eye there as much as a minute; then he
raised up and sighed, and
says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understand
this thing, no way;
however, I'll tackle her again.' He fetched
another acorn, and done his
level best to see what become of it, but he
couldn't. He says, 'Well, I
never struck no such a hole as this before;
I'm of the opinion it's a
totally new kind of a hole.' Then he begun
to get mad. He held in for
a spell, walking up and down the comb of the
roof and shaking his head
and muttering to himself; but his feelings got
the upper hand of him,
presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself
black in the face. I never
see a bird take on so about a little thing.
When he got through he
walks to the hole and looks in again for half a
minute; then he says, 'Well,
you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and
a mighty singular hole
altogether--but I've started in to fill you, and
I'm damned if I DON'T fill
you, if it takes a hundred years!'
"And with that, away
he went. You never see a bird work so since you was
born. He laid into his work
like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns
into that hole for about
two hours and a half was one of the most
exciting and astonishing
spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to
take a look anymore--he
just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at
last he could hardly flop
his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes
a-dropping down, once more,
sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped his
acorn in and says, 'NOW I
guess I've got the bulge on you by this time!'
So he bent down for a look.
If you'll believe me, when his head come up
again he was just pale with
rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enough
in there to keep the family
thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one
of 'em I wish I may land in
a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two
minutes!'
"He just had strength
enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his
back agin the chimbly, and
then he collected his impressions and
begun to free his mind. I
see in a second that what I had mistook for
profanity in the mines was
only just the rudiments, as you may say.
"Another jay was going
by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stops
to inquire what was up. The
sufferer told him the whole circumstance,
and says, 'Now yonder's the
hole, and if you don't believe me, go and
look for yourself.' So this
fellow went and looked, and comes back and
says, 'How many did you say
you put in there?' 'Not any less than
two tons,' says the
sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He
couldn't seem to make it
out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays
come. They all examined the
hole, they all made the sufferer tell
it over again, then they
all discussed it, and got off as many
leather-headed opinions
about it as an average crowd of humans could
have done.
"They called in more
jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this
whole region 'peared to
have a blue flush about it. There must have been
five thousand of them; and
such another jawing and disputing and ripping
and cussing, you never
heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to
the hole and delivered a
more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery
than the jay that went
there before him. They examined the house all
over, too. The door was
standing half open, and at last one old jay
happened to go and light on
it and look in. Of course, that knocked the
mystery galley-west in a
second. There lay the acorns, scattered all
over the floor.. He flopped
his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!'
he says, 'Come here,
everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying
to fill up a house with
acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a
blue cloud, and as each
fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the
whole absurdity of the
contract that that first jay had tackled hit him
home and he fell over
backward suffocating with laughter, and the next
jay took his place and done
the same.
"Well, sir, they
roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for
an hour, and guffawed over
that thing like human beings. It ain't any
use to tell me a bluejay
hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know
better. And memory, too.
They brought jays here from all over the United
States to look down that
hole, every summer for three years. Other
birds, too. And they could
all see the point except an owl that come
from Nova Scotia to visit
the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on
his way back. He said he
couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he
was a good deal
disappointed about Yo Semite, too."