Backed against the wall in
the farthest corner, and keeping his eye on the outrageous bird, he
tenderly touched and washed the sore spot, wetting his paw with his
tongue, pausing now and then as his courage increased to glare and
stare and growl at his enemy with looks and tones wonderfully human,
as if saying: "You confounded fishy, unfair rascal! What did you do
that for? What had I done to you? Faithless, legless, long-nosed
wretch!" Intense experiences like the above bring out the humanity
that is in all animals. One touch of nature, even a cat-and-loon
touch, makes all the world kin.
It was a great memorable day when the first flock of passenger pigeons
came to our farm, calling to mind the story we had read about them
when we were at school in Scotland. Of all God's feathered people that
sailed the Wisconsin sky, no other bird seemed to us so wonderful. The
beautiful wanderers flew like the winds in flocks of millions from
climate to climate in accord with the weather, finding their
food--acorns, beechnuts, pine-nuts, cranberries, strawberries,
huckleberries, juniper berries, hackberries, buckwheat, rice, wheat,
oats, corn--in fields and forests thousands of miles apart.
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