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, 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, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and birds, until he could accurately translate any remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker , some animals only have a limited education, and only used 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 they talk a great deal; they like it; they are conscious of their talent, and they enjoy “showing off”. Baker said ,after long and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the best talkers among the 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 booktalk and bristling with metaphor, too — just bristling! And as for command of the 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, 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 that 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’re as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and leave.
You may call a jay a bird. Well, he is , in a measure — because he’s got feathers on him and don’t belong to no church, perhaps ; but otherwise he is just as much a 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 solumnest promise. The sacredness of an obligation is one thing 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. And there’s yet another thing — in the one particular of scolding — just 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 good 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. When I first began to understand the jay language correctly, there was a little incident that 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 , on Sunday morning I was sitting out 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 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 recon I ‘ve struck something.” When he spoke the acorn dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, of course , he didn’t care; his mind was all on the thing he 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 possom 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 ; he winks his wingsand 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 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 off his face like breath off’n a razor , and the queerest look of surprise took its placeThen 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 a look from that side; shook his head again. He studied a while then he went into the details- and walked around and around the hole 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 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 in the hole quick enough to see what became of it, but he was too late. He held his eye there as much as a minute ; then 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 yet another acorn, and done his level best to see what became of it but he couldn’t. He says, Well, I never struck no hole such as this before; I’m of the opinion it’s a totally new kind of 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 , 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 again and looks in for half a minute; and 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 da — ed 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 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 any more — he just hove ‘em in and went for more. Well, at last he could hardly flap his wings, he was so tuckered out He comes a-drooping down, once more, sweating like an ice pitcher, drops 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 said, “I’ve shoveled acorns enough in there to keep the family for thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one of ‘em Iwish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two minutes!”
He just had strength enough to crawl up on the comb and lean his back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and began to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for profanity in the mines was just the rudiments a, as you may say.
Another jay was going by and heard him doing his devotions, and stops to inquire what’s up. The sufferer told him the whole circumstance and says,”Now yonder’s the hole, and if you don’t believe me go up and look for yourself.” So the fellow went up and looked and comes back and says, “How many did 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 the average crowd of humans could have done.
They called in more jays; then more and more, ‘till the whole region ‘peared to have a blue flush about it There must have been five thousand of them; and such another yawing and disputing and ripping and cussing , you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye in 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 least one old jay happened to light on it and look in. Of course that knocked the mystery galley west in a secondThere lay the acorns, scattered all over the floor. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. “Come here!” he says, “Come here everybody; hanged if this fool hasn’t been trying to fill up a house with acorns!” They all came a swoopin’ down like a blue cloud, and each fellow lit on the door and took a glanceand the whole absurdity of the contract 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 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 about it . But then he was agood deal disappointed about Yo Semite too.