How Animals Talk 



He was always friendly, peaceable, childlike, and 

 unconsciously or subconsciously, I think, he could 

 tame or influence these wild spirits by letting them 

 feel his own. 



So also could an old negro, an ex-slave, with 

 whom I used to go fox-hunting in my student days. 

 He could train a dog or a colt in a tenth part of the 

 time required by ordinary men, and he used no 

 whip or petting or feeding, or any other device 

 commonly employed by professional trainers. 

 At times, indeed, his animals acted as if trained 

 from the moment he touched or spoke to them. 

 He had a mongrel lot of dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, 

 cows and horses ; but they were a veritable happy 

 family (on a cold night his cats would sleep with 

 a setting hen, if they could find one, or otherwise 

 with the foxhounds), and to see them all running 

 to meet "Uncle" when he came home, or following 

 at his heels or doing what he told them, was to 

 wonder what strange animal language he was 

 master of. 



At daybreak one winter morning I entered the 

 old negro's kitchen very quietly, and had a fire 

 going and coffee sending forth its aroma before 

 I heard him creaking down the stairs. I had 

 traveled "across lots," making no sound in the 

 new-fallen snow, and, as I approached the house, 

 had purposely kept its dark bulk between me and 



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