“You may call a jay a bird.  Well, so he is, in a measure —­but he’s got feathers on him, and don’t belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much 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 solemnest promise.  The sacredness of an obligation is such a thing which 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; in the one little particular of scolding—­just good, 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 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.”

Chapter III
Baker’s Bluejay Yarn
[What Stumped the Blue Jays]

“When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was a little incident 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, one Sunday morning I was sitting out here 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 the 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 reckon I’ve struck something.’  When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn’t care; his mind 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 to the hole, like a possum 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!’