Some would call this "instinct," as if so-called
"blind instinct" must necessarily make an ox stand on its head to
break pumpkins when its teeth got sore, or when nobody came with an
axe to split them. Another fine ox showed his skill when hungry by
opening all the fences that stood in his way to the corn-fields.
The humanity we found in them came partly through the expression of
their eyes when tired, their tones of voice when hungry and calling
for food, their patient plodding and pulling in hot weather, their
long-drawn-out sighing breath when exhausted and suffering like
ourselves, and their enjoyment of rest with the same grateful looks as
ours. We recognized their kinship also by their yawning like ourselves
when sleepy and evidently enjoying the same peculiar pleasure at the
roots of their jaws; by the way they stretched themselves in the
morning after a good rest; by learning languages,--Scotch, English,
Irish, French, Dutch,--a smattering of each as required in the
faithful service they so willingly, wisely rendered; by their
intelligent, alert curiosity, manifested in listening to strange
sounds; their love of play; the attachments they made; and their
mourning, long continued, when a companion was killed.
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