,
picking up any small thing he finds, left purposely for him, a burnt
match, a small key, stray pins, or a marble, and seeks the very best and
most secluded spot in the room in which to hide it. A pin he takes
lengthwise in his mouth, which he closes as though he had swallowed it,
as at first I feared he had. He has no doubt about the best place for
that; he long ago decided that between the leaves of a book is safest.
So he proceeds at once to find a convenient volume, and thrusts the pin
far in out of sight. A match gives him the most trouble. He tries the
cracks under the grooves in the moulding of the doors, the base board,
between the matting and the wall, or under a rocker; in each place he
puts it carefully, and pounds it in, then hops off, giving me one of
the

"sidelong glances wise
Wherewith the jay hints tragedies,"

attempting to look unconcerned, as if he had not been doing anything.
But if he sees that he is observed, or the match is too plainly in
sight, he removes it and begins again, running and hopping around on the
floor with the most solemn, business-like air, as though he had the
affairs of nations on his shoulders, the match thrust nearly its whole
length into his mouth. The place usually decided upon is an opening
between the breadths of matting. It is amusing when he chances to get
hold of a box of matches, accidentally left open, for he feels the
necessity and importance of disposing of each one, and is busy and
industrious in proportion to the task before him. It is not so pleasing,
however, when, in his hammering, he sets one off, as he often does; for
they are "parlor matches," and light with a small explosion, which
frightens him half out of his wits, and me as well, lest he set the
house afire. The business of safely and securely secreting one match
will frequently occupy him half an hour. He finds the oddest
hiding-places, as in a caster between the wheel and its frame; up inside
the seat of a stuffed chair, to reach which he flies up on to the
webbing and goes in among the springs; in the side of my slipper while
on my foot; in the loop of a bow; in the plaits of a ruffle; under a
pillow. Often when I get up, a shower of the jay's treasures falls from
various hiding-places about my dress,--nails, matches, shoe-buttons, and
others; and I am never sure that I shall not find soft, milk-soaked
bread in my slipper. But the latest discovered and most annoying of his
receptac