Lonely Tom— The Story of a Pinon Jay 



By JOHN HAMMirX. Santa Fe. New Mexico 



WmrniKR he was a disgusted l)achelor, a heartbroken widower, or 

 merely a disappointed lover, I have never been able to satisfac- 

 torily settle. His coming into my possession and into my life,— 

 the forming of a bond of sympathy and affection, which, on my part, out- 

 lasted the short span of our acquaintance— was of itself pecuhar; and his 

 reasons for departing this life so suddenly are equal mysteries. But, possibly 

 I am getting ahead of my story. 



It had been a beautiful day from the early hour when a friend and I started 

 on a lousiness trip of some forty miles across the prairie until our return in the 

 late e\ening. To me the prairie country never appealed very strongly, so I 

 may not be a good judge of fine days on the level plains; but this day was as 

 fine as any I had ever seen in the West. Long, rolling expanse of pasture- 

 land, knee-high in grass and flowers, stretched in every direction, scintillating 

 with' golden gleams, as the rays of the patient sun, now slowly sinking below 

 the cardboard edge of the plain, bathed all in a subdued golden light. The 

 vastness and loneliness of the prairie was reUeved by occasional buttes, which, 

 rising like i)yramids in their solemn grandeur, made the quiet still more 

 impressive, and gave one the feeling that here indeed the dross and sham of 

 life had slipped away, and he stood face to face with his real inner self. These 

 buttes were also of real value, for, besides relieving the tense sameness of the 

 landscape, they were guides to the newcomer and tenderfoot, should he ever 

 be wise enough to tell the difference between any two of them. 



The sun had now reached that point where all was wrapped in a subdued, 

 mellow, golden glow— a warm, delicious liquid fire— the true charm of the 

 prairie, giving it a beauty that few painters have been able to reproduce. 

 The flowers, mostly of the daisy order, sparkled in the last rays of the sun, and 

 even the somber sage and shoestring took on an added glory. A hush— still- 

 ness as of expectancy— was over all when, as I said before, he came. 



I am not generally given to day-dreaming, and on trips of this kind usually 

 keep my eyes open for all things interesting, but this event was unheralded. 

 My first knowledge of it was a flapping of wings, a circling near and around 

 our heads, and a voice that seemed, more than any thing else, to be a human 

 call for help restricted in utterance. Out of the Nowhere into the Now, was 

 a fitting description of his sudden appearance. After a few circlings around 

 our heads and many of his strange calls, out over the darkening prairie for 

 several hundred yards he flew, when, just as we had about given him up and 

 decided he had taken his departure, back he came with that strange weird cry, 

 like the "Nevermore" of Poe's Raven, to repeat his peculiar antics. 



It has ever been a pet theory of mine that the different species of animals, 

 including the genus Homo, ha\e points of strong resemblance. Notice the 



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