WILLIAM MARTIN

THE BLUEJAY

Said Jim Baker: "There's more to a bluejay than to any other creature.
He has more kinds of feeling than any other creature; and mind you,
whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into words. No common words either,
but out-and-out book-talk. You never see a jay at a loss for a word.

"You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, because he has feathers on
him. Otherwise, he is just as human as you are.

"Yes, sir; a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can laugh, a jay can
gossip, a jay can feel ashamed, just as well as you do, maybe better.
And there's another thing: in good, clean, out-and-out scolding, a
bluejay can beat anything alive.

"Seven years ago the last man about here but me moved away. There stands
his house--a log house with 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, when a bluejay flew down on that house with
an acorn in his mouth.

"'Hello,' says he, 'I reckon here's something.' When he spoke, the acorn
fell out of his mouth and rolled down on the roof. He didn't care; his
mind was on the thing he had found.

"It was a knot-hole in the roof. He cocked his head to one side, shut
one eye, and put the other to the hole, like a 'possum looking down a
jug.'

"Then he looked up, gave a wink or two with his wings, and says: 'It
looks like a hole, it's placed like a hole--and--if I don't think it is
a hole!'

"Then he cocked his head down and took another look. He looked up with
joy, this time winked his wings and his tail both, and says: 'If I ain't
in luck! Why it's an elegant hole!'

"So he flew down and got that acorn and dropped it in, and was tilting
his head back with a smile when a queer look of surprise came over his
face. Then he says: 'Why, I didn't hear it fall.'

"He cocked his eye at the hole again and took a long look; rose up and
shook his head; went to the other side of the hole and took another look
from that side; shook his head again. No use.

"So after thinking awhile, he says: 'I reckon it's all right. I'll try
it, anyway.'

"So he flew off and brought another acorn and dropped it in, and tried
to get his eye to the hole quick enough to see what became of it. He was
too late. He got another acorn and tried to see where it went, but he
couldn't.

"He says: 'Well, I never saw such a hole as this b