In previous chapters we have noted, as rare examples of telepathy in human society, that a mother may at times know when an absent son or husband is in danger, or that an African savage often knows when a stranger is approaching his village hid in the jungle; but there is another manifestation of the same faculty which is much more common, and which we have thus far overlooked, leaving it as an odd and totally unrelated thing without explanation. I refer to the man, known in almost every village, who has some special gift for training or managing animals, who seems to know instinctively what goes on in a brute’s head, and who can send his own will or impulse into the lower mind. I would explain that unrelated man, naturally, by the simple fact or assumption that he has inherited more than usual of the animals’ gift of silent communication.
I knew one such man, a harmless, half-witted creature, who loved to roam the woods alone by day or night, and whom the wild birds and beasts met with hardly a trace of the fear or suspicion they manifest in presence of other human beings. [[140]]He was always friendly, peaceable, childlike, and unconsciously or subconsciously, I think, he could tame or influence these wild spirits by letting them feel his own.
So also could an old negro, an ex-slave, with whom I used to go fox-hunting in my student days. He could train a dog or a colt in a tenth part of the time required by ordinary men, and he used no whip or petting or feeding, or any other device commonly employed by professional trainers. At times, indeed, his animals acted as if trained from the moment he touched or spoke to them. He had a mongrel lot of dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, cows and horses; but they were a veritable happy family (on a cold night his cats would sleep with a setting hen, if they could find one, or otherwise with the foxhounds), and to see them all running to meet “Uncle” when he came home, or following at his heels or doing what he told them, was to wonder what strange animal language he was master of.
At daybreak one winter morning I entered the old negro’s kitchen very quietly, and had a fire going and coffee sending forth its aroma before I heard him creaking down the stairs. I had traveled “across lots,” making no sound in the new-fallen snow, and, as I approached the house, had purposely kept its dark bulk between me and [[141]]the dogs, which were asleep in their kennel some distance away. For a time all was quiet as only a winter dawn can be; but as we sat down to breakfast one of the hounds with a big bass voice suddenly broke out in an earth-shaking jubilation. The other hounds quickly caught up the clamor, yelling as if they had just jumped a fox, while two dogs of another breed were strangely silent; and then ’Poleon added his bit to the tumult by stamping, whinnying and finally kicking lustily on the boards of his stall. ’Poleon, by the way, was an old white horse that Uncle used to ride (he was “gittin’ too rheumaticky,” he said, to hunt with me afoot), and this sober beast was fair crazy to join the chase whenever a fox was afoot.
The negro paid no attention to the noise; but as it went on increasing, and ’Poleon whinnyed more wildly, and the big-voiced hound kept up a continuous bellow that might have roused the seven sleepers, the unseemly racket got on my nerves, so early in the day.
“What the mischief is the matter with Jum this morning?” I demanded.
“Matter? Mischief?” echoed Uncle, as if surprised I did not understand such plain animal talk. “Why, ol’ Jum’s a-gwine fox-huntin’ dis mawny. He reckons he knows what we-all’s up to: and now de yother dawgs an’ ’Poleon dey [[142]]reckons dey knows it, too. Jum’s tole um. Dat’s all de matter an’ de mischief.”
“But how in the world should he know? You never go hunting now unless I tempt you, and none of the dogs saw or heard me come in,” I objected.
Uncle chuckled at that, chuckled a long time, as if it were a good joke. “Trust ol’ Jum ter know when we-all’s gwine fox-huntin’,” he said. “You jes’ trust him. I specks he kinder pick de idee outer de air soon’s we thunk it, same’s he pick a fox scent. ’Tain’t no use tryin’ ter lie ter Jum, ’cause you can’t fool ’im nohow. No, sir, when dat ol’ dawg’s eroun’, you don’ wanter think erbout nothin’ you don’ want ’im ter know.”
I had often marveled at Uncle, but now suddenly I thought I understood him. In his unconscious confession that he thought or felt with his animals, rather than spoke English to them, was probably the whole secret of his wonderful gift of training.