By Way of an Introduction. 9 



some reserves. She considers herself in no way beholden 

 for her board and keep. 



\Ye admire the dog's intelligence, which means that 

 we think his mind is very like ours. If dogs could spare 

 their forelegs from running and could hold things with 

 their paws, as a man can with his hands, and in addition 

 had the right-shaped mouths for talking, I don't know 

 but they would run Man a pretty close race for supremacy. 

 \Ye make a great deal of to-do over the dog's devotion, 

 and really it is surprising, but it is a fact that the name of 

 the only animal in creation that is truly and whole- 

 heartedly our friend is the name we give to somebody that 

 we loathe and detest. It is only the selfish and cruel- 

 hearted person that we call " a cat." There is less con- 

 tempt than fear in this epithet. Fear is a kind of respect. 



Dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep, and chickens those 

 are the animals we know best in these times, though our 

 hunting days are not so far back of us but we have a 

 speaking acquaintance with some other animals that are 

 good to eat or else devour the animals that are good to 

 eat. These latter we count our foes, but what little 

 respect we can spare from ourselves goes to them and 

 not to our friends. We are always glad that Congress 

 had the sense to reject Benjamin Franklin's suggestion 

 to make the turkey the national bird. That it is a beauti- 

 ful creature and one peculiar to this country cannot take 

 away the reproach of its being good to eat. Think how 

 ashamed we should be to have tc put the picture of a 

 gobbler on condensed-milk cans and soap-boxes instead 

 of a noble kind of buzzard with a ribbon in its mouth. 

 There is something glorious about an eagle, for it steals 

 chickens and is not fit to eat. 



'Out from the center of the earth, beyond birds and their 

 cousins, the reptiles and the cold fishes, beyond even the 



