A Tramp Abroad

  CHAPTER III

  Baker's Bluejay Yarn

  [What Stumped the Blue Jays]

  "When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was alittle incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in thisregion 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; noceiling--nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sundaymorning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, takingthe sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leavesrustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder inthe states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejaylit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, Ireckon I've struck something.' When he spoke, the acorn dropped out ofhis mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn't care; hismind 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 tothe hole, like a possum looking down a jug; then he glanced up withhis bright eyes, gave a wink or two with his wings--which signifiesgratification, you understand--and says, 'It looks like a hole, it'slocated 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 upperfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, andsays, '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 thatacorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting hishead back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of asudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile fadedgradually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and thequeerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn'thear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a longlook; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side ofthe hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. Hestudied a while, then he just went into the Details--walked round andround 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 andscratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finallysays, 'Well, it's too many for _me_, that's certain; must be a mightylong 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 triedto 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 heraised up and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understandthis thing, no way; however, I'll tackle her again.' He fetchedanother acorn, and done his level best to see what become of it, but hecouldn'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 begunto get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and down the comb of theroof and shaking his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings gotthe upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himselfblack 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 aminute; then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, anda mighty singular hole altogether--but I've started in to fill you, andI'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 wasborn. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acornsinto that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the mostexciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped totake a look anymore--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, atlast he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comesa-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped hisacorn in and says, '_Now_ I guess I've got the bulge on you by thistime!' So he bent down for a look. If you'll believe me, when his headcome up again he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acornsenough in there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a signof one of 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdustin two minutes!'

  "He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean hisback agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions andbegun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook forprofanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.

  "Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stopsto 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 andlook for yourself.' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back andsays, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less thantwo tons,' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. Hecouldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jayscome. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tellit over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as manyleather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans couldhave done.

  "They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon thiswhole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have beenfive thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and rippingand cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye tothe hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mysterythan the jay that went there before him. They examined the house allover, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jayhappened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked themystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered allover 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 tryingto fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like ablue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, thewhole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit himhome and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the nextjay took his place and done the same.

  "Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees foran hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't anyuse to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I knowbetter. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the UnitedStates to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Otherbirds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that comefrom Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in onhis way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then hewas a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too."