by Mark Twain
I heard the muffled sobbings again. But for that, I should not have moved hand or foot in such a wild enterprise in the dark.
However, I went at my task—over chairs, and against all sorts of obstructions, all of them hard ones, too, and most of them with sharp edges—and at last I got kitty cooped up in the commode, at an expense of over four hundred dollars in broken furniture and shins. Then these muffled words came from the closet:
“It says the safest thing is to stand on a chair in the middle of the room, Mortimer; and the legs of the chair must be insulated with non-conductors. That is, you must set the legs of the chair in glass tumblers. [Fzt!—boom—bang!—smash!] Oh, hear that! Do hurry, Mortimer, before you are struck.”
I managed to find and secure the tumblers. I got the last four—broke all the rest. I insulated the chair legs, and called for further instructions.
“Mortimer, it says, ‘Während eines Gewitters entferne man Metalle, wie z. B., Ringe, Uhren, Schlüssel, etc., von sich und halte sich auch nicht an solchen Stellen auf, wo viele Metalle bei einander liegen, oder mit andern Körpern verbunden sind, wie an Herden, Oefen, Eisengittern u. dgl.’ What does that mean, Mortimer? Does it mean that you must keep metals about you, or keep them away from you?”
“Well, I hardly know. It appears to be a little mixed. All German advice is more or less mixed. However, I think that that sentence is mostly in the dative case, with a little genitive and accusative sifted in, here and there, for luck; so I reckon it means that you must keep some metals about you.”
“Yes, that must be it. It stands to reason that it is. They are in the nature of lightning-rods, you know. Put on your fireman’s helmet, Mortimer; that is mostly metal.”
I got it, and put it on—a very heavy and clumsy and uncomfortable thing on a hot night in a close room. Even my night-dress seemed to be more clothing than I strictly needed.
“Mortimer, I think your middle ought to be protected. Won’t you buckle on your militia saber, please?”
I complied.
“Now, Mortimer, you ought to have some way to protect your feet. Do please put on your spurs.”
I did it—in silence—and kept my temper as well as I could.
“Mortimer, it says, ‘Das Gewitter läuten ist sehr gefährlich, weil die Glocke selbst, sowie der durch das Läuten veranlasste Luftzug und die Höhe des Thurmes den Blitz anziehen könnten.’ Mortimer, does that mean that it is dangerous not to ring the church bells during a thunderstorm?”
“Yes, it seems to mean that—if that is the past participle of the nominative case singular, and I reckon it is. Yes, I think it means that on account of the height of the church tower and the absence of Luftzug it would be very dangerous (sehr gefährlich) not to ring the bells in time of a storm; and, moreover, don’t you see, the very wording—”
“Never mind that, Mortimer; don’t waste the precious time in talk. Get the large dinner-bell; it is right there in the hall. Quick, Mortimer, dear; we are almost safe. Oh, dear, I do believe we are going to be saved, at last!”
Our little summer establishment stands on top of a high range of hills, overlooking a valley. Several farm-houses are in our neighborhood—the nearest some three or four hundred yards away.
When I, mounted on the chair, had been clanging that dreadful bell a matter of seven or eight minutes, our shutters were suddenly torn open from without, and a brilliant bull’s-eye lantern was thrust in at the window, followed by a hoarse inquiry:
“What in the nation is the matter here?”
The window was full of men’s heads, and the heads were full of eyes that started wildly at my night-dress and my war-like accoutrements.
I dropped the bell, skipped down from the chair in confusion, and said:
“There is nothing the matter, friends—only a little discomfort on account of the thunder-storm. I was trying to keep off the lightning.”
“Thunder-storm? Lightning? Why, Mr. McWilliams, have you lost your mind? It is a beautiful starlight night; there has been no storm.”
I looked out, and I was so astonished I could hardly speak for a while. Then I said:
“I do not understand this. We distinctly saw the glow of the flashes through the curtains and shutters, and heard the thunder.”
One after another of those people lay down on the ground to laugh—and two of them died. One of the survivors remarked:
“Pity you didn’t think to open your blinds and look over to the top of the high hill yonder. What you heard was cannon; what you saw was the flash. You see, the telegraph brought some news, just at midnight; Garfield’s nominated—and that’s what’s the matter!”
Yes, Mr. Twain, as I was saying in the beginning (said Mr. McWilliams), the rules for preserving people against lightning are so excellent and so innumerable that the most incomprehensible thing in the world to me is how anybody ever manages to get struck.
So saying, he gathered up his satchel and umbrella, and departed; for the train had reached his town.
1880
WHAT STUMPED THE BLUEJAYS
ANIMALS TALK to each other, of course. There can be no question about that; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate any remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and use only very simple words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it; they are conscious of their talent, and they enjoy “showing off.” Baker said, that after long and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:
There’s more to a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and, mind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And no more commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk—and bristling with metaphor, too—just bristling! And as for command of language—why you never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I’ve noticed a good deal, and there’s no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does—but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use. Now I’ve never heard a jay use bad grammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and leave.
You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure—because he’s got feathers on him, and don’t belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much a 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 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. And there’s yet another thing; in the one little particular of scolding—just good, clean, out-and-out scolding—a bluejay can lay over anything, huma
n 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. 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!”
Then he cocked his head down and took another look; he glances up perfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, and says, “Oh, no, this ain’t no fat thing, I reckon! If I ain’t in luck!—why it’s a perfectly elegant hole!” So he flew down and got that acorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his head back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a sudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded gradually out of his countenance like breath off’n a razor, and the queerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, “Why, I didn’t hear it fall!” He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long look; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side of the hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. He studied a while, then he just went into the details—walked round and round the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass. No use. Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the roof and scratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally says, “Well, it’s too many for me, that’s certain; must be a mighty long hole; however, I ain’t got no time to fool around here, I got to ’tend to business; I reckon it’s all right—chance it, anyway.”
So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and tried to flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what become of it, but he was too late. He held his eye there as much as a minute; then he raised up and sighed, and says, “Confound it, I don’t seem to understand this thing, no way; however, I’ll tackle her again.” He fetched another acorn, and done his level best to see what become of it, but he couldn’t. He says, “Well, I never struck no such hole as this before; I’m of the opinion it’s a totally new kind of a hole.” Then he begun to get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and down the comb of the roof and shaking his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings got the upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself black in the face. I never see a bird take on so about a little thing. When he got through he walks to the hole and looks in again for half a minute; then he says, “Well, you’re a long hole, and a deep hole, and a mighty singular hole altogether—but I’ve started in to fill you, and I’m d—d if I don’t fill you, if it takes a hundred years!”
And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so since you was born. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns into that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the most exciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to take a look any more—he just hove ’em in and went for more. Well, at last he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes a-drooping down, once more, sweating like an icepitcher, drops his acorn in and says, “Now I guess I’ve got the bulge on you by this time!” So he bent down for a look. If you’ll believe me, when his head come up again he was just pale with rage. He says, “I’ve shoveled acorns enough in there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one of ’em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two minutes!”
He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and begun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for profanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.
Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stops to inquire what was up. The sufferer told him the whole circumstance, and says, “Now yonder’s the hole, and if you don’t believe me, go and look for yourself.” So this fellow went and looked, and comes back and says; “How many did you say you put in there?” “Not any less than two tons,” says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He couldn’t seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays come. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tell it over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many leather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could have done.
They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this whole region ’peared to have blue flush about it. There must have been five thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and ripping and cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to the hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery than the jay that went there before him. They examined the house all over, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jay happened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the mystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all over the floor. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. “Come here!” he says, “Come here, everybody; hang’d if this fool hasn’t been trying to fill up a house with acorns!” They all came a-swooping down like a blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the whole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him home and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next jay took his place and done the same.
Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain’t any use to tell me a bluejay hasn’t got a sense of humor, because I know better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United States to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other birds, too. And they could all see the point, except an owl that come from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on his way back. He said he couldn’t see anything funny in it. But then he was a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too.
From A TRAMP ABROAD, 1880
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE
THIS IS the story which the Major told me, as nearly as I can recall it:
In the winter of 1862–63 I was commandant of Fort Trumbull, at New London, Conn. Maybe our life there was not so brisk as life at “the front”; still it was brisk enough, in its way—one’s brains didn’t cake together there for lack of something to keep them stirring. For one thing, all the Northern atmosphere at that time was thick with mysterious rumors—rumors to the effect that rebel spies were flitting everywhere, and getting ready to blow up our Northern forts, burn our hotels, send infected clothing into our towns, and all that sort of thing. You remember it. All this had a tendency to keep us awake, and knock the traditional dullness out of garrison life. Besides, ours was a recruiting station—which is the same as saying we hadn’t any time to waste in dozing, or dreaming, or fooling around. Why, with all our watchfulness, fifty per cent. of a day’s recruit
s would leak out of our hands and give us the slip the same night. The bounties were so prodigious that a recruit could pay a sentinel three or four hundred dollars to let him escape, and still have enough of his bounty-money left to constitute a fortune for a poor man. Yes, as I said before, our life was not drowsy.
Well, one day I was in my quarters alone, doing some writing, when a pale and ragged lad of fourteen or fifteen entered, made a neat bow, and said:
“I believe recruits are received here?”
“Yes.”
“Will you please enlist me, sir?”
“Dear me, no! You are too young, my boy, and too small.”
A disappointed look came into his face, and quickly deepened into an expression of despondency. He turned slowly away, as if to go; hesitated, then faced me again, and said, in a tone that went to my heart:
“I have no home, and not a friend in the world. If you could only enlist me!”
But of course the thing was out of the question, and I said so as gently as I could. Then I told him to sit down by the stove and warm himself, and added:
“You shall have something to eat, presently. You are hungry?”
He did not answer; he did not need to; the gratitude in his big, soft eyes was more eloquent than any words could have been. He sat down by the stove, and I went on writing. Occasionally I took a furtive glance at him. I noticed that his clothes and shoes, although soiled and damaged, were of good style and material. This fact was suggestive. To it I added the facts that his voice was low and musical; his eyes deep and melancholy; his carriage and address gentlemanly; evidently the poor chap was in trouble. As a result, I was interested.
However, I became absorbed in my work by and by, and forgot all about the boy. I don’t know how long this lasted; but at length I happened to look up. The boy’s back was toward me, but his face was turned in such a way that I could see one of his cheeks—and down that cheek a rill of noiseless tears was flowing.
