How Animals Talk 



a galling wound, perhaps, or from living an out- 

 cast life by himself. He was a little crazy, I 

 judged. That he was dangerous I knew from the 

 fact that he had previously made an unprovoked 

 attack upon my Indian. He, too, had heard the 

 call; had approached it from behind as stealthily 

 as a cat, and had no doubt watched me, puzzled 

 by my stillness, till my first decided motion 

 brought him out on the jump. But I am wan- 

 dering away from the small boy getting his first 

 lessons in the woods, and learning that the im- 

 portant thing is to hold perfectly still. 



Later, when eight or nine years old, I went alone 

 day after summer day to the wild berry-pastures. 

 When my big pail would hold no more, I would 

 make a bowl by bashing in the top of my hat, and 

 fill it to the brim with luscious blueberries. These 

 with a generous slice of bread made an excellent 

 lunch, which I always ate within sight of a bird's 

 nest, or the den of a fox, or some other abode of 

 life that I had discovered in the woods. And 

 again, as I sat quiet in the solitude, the birds and 

 small animals might be led by curiosity to ap- 

 proach as fearlessly as when I was too small to 

 harm them. Now a vixen, finding me too near 

 her den and cubs, would squall at me impatient- 

 ly, like a little yellow dog with a cat's voice; or 

 again, a brooding bird that objected to my scrutiny 



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