"On account of the birds. You know Miss Laura thinks it is wrong
to kill the pretty creatures that fly about the woods."

"So it is," he said, "unless one kills them at once. I have often felt
angry with men for only half killing a bird. I hated to pick up the
little warm body, and see the bright eye looking so reproachfully at
me, and feel the flutter of life. We animals, or rather the most of
us, kill mercifully. It is only human beings who butcher their prey,
and seem, some of them, to rejoice in their agony. I used to be
eager to kill birds and rabbits, but I did not want to keep them
before me long after they were dead. I often stop in the street and
look up at fine ladies' bonnets, and wonder how they can wear
little dead birds in such dreadful positions. Some of them have
their heads twisted under their wings and over their shoulders, and
looking toward their tails, and their eyes are so horrible that I wish
I could take those ladies into the woods and let them see how easy
and pretty a live bird is, and how unlike the stuffed creatures they
wear. Have you ever had a good run in the woods, Joe?"

"No, never," I said.

"Some day I will take you, and now it is late and I must go to bed.
Are you going to sleep in the kennel with me, or in the stable?"

"I think I will sleep with you, Jim. Dogs like company, you know,
as well as human beings." I curled up in the straw beside him and
soon we were fast asleep.

I have known a good many dogs, but I don't think I ever saw such a
good one as Jim. He was gentle and kind, and so sensitive that a