We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country trapping on
the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a couple of miles
from our dug-out—or it might have been four, she isn’t certain which.
It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what she
thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference in size
warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal—a
fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and
she plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the
experiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she
is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have it to try. I
do not understand this. The coming of the creature seems to have
changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments.
She thinks more of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is
not able to explain why. Her mind is disordered—everything shows it.
Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it
complains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes
out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the
fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and
betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her
do like this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used
to carry the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost
our property; but it was only play; she never took on about them like
this when their dinner disagreed with them.