Ontario Readers Third Book, The

<h2><SPAN name="Bluejay" id="Bluejay"></SPAN>THE BLUEJAY</h2> <p>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.</p> <p>"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.</p> <p>"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.</p> <p>"Seven years ago the last man about here but me moved away. There stands his house&mdash;a log house with just one big room and no more: no ceiling, nothing between the rafters and the floor.</p> <p>"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.</p> <p>"'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.</p> <p>"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.'</p> <p>"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&mdash;and&mdash;if I don't think it is a hole!'</p> <p>"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!'</p> <p>"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.'</p> <p>"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.</p> <p>"So after thinking awhile, he says: 'I reckon it's all right. I'll try it, anyway.'</p> <p>"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.</p> <p>"He says: 'Well, I never saw such a hole as this before. I reckon it's a new kind.' Then he got angry and walked up and down the roof. I never saw a bird take on so.</p> <p>"When he got through, he looked in the hole for half a minute; then he says: 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and a queer hole, but I have started to fill you, and I'll do it if it takes a hundred years.'</p> <p>"And with that away he went. For two hours and a half you never saw a bird work so hard. He did not stop to look in any more, but just threw acorns in and went for more.</p> <p>"Well, at last he could hardly flap his wings he was so tired out. So he bent down for a look. He looked up, pale with rage. He says: 'I've put in enough acorns to keep the family thirty years, and I can't see a sign of them.'</p> <p>"Another jay was going by and heard him. So he stopped to ask what was the matter. Our jay told him the whole story. Then he went and looked down the hole and came back and said: 'How many tons did you put in there?' 'Not less than two,' said our jay.</p> <p>"The other jay looked again, but could not make it out; so he gave a yell and three more jays came. They all talked at once for awhile, and then called in more jays.</p> <p>"Pretty soon the air was blue with jays, and every jay put his eye to the hole and told what he thought. They looked the house all over, too. The door was partly open, and at last one old jay happened to look in. There lay the acorns all over the floor.</p> <p>"He flapped his wings and gave a yell: 'Come here, everybody! Ha! Ha! He's been trying to fill a house with acorns!'</p> <p>"As each jay took a look, the fun of the thing struck him, and how he did laugh. And for an hour after they roosted on the housetop and trees, and laughed like human beings. It isn't any use to tell me a bluejay hasn't any fun in him. I know better."</p> <p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Samuel L. Clemens</span> (Mark Twain)</p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />