It seems that he commiserates pity for the animals because they only receive a small portion of drink, while we as people can devour large mouthfuls. Richard, however, was malnourished as a child and would get sick if he had too much milk. He might think it funny that these animals only lap their drinks but in a way, they are getting the same amount if not more then Richard ever got when he was a child.
When you"re a child, it seems like you have not a care in the world. There's no care about political rivalries, no vexations about income, and no worries about enough food on the table. Children look at the little things that make life enjoyable. They dream all the time using their imaginations to make their world seem and feel pleasant. If there is a problem in a child's family, whatever it is, children can always make it better by creating their own world to escape to. Wright mentions his feelings in this line, "There was the languor I felt when I heard green leaves rustling with a rain like sound" (Wright, 1944). No one else but a child, without worries, can actually notice the sound leaves make when rustling. .
Some children are exposed to events that can scar their memories. I suppose parents want their children to achieve brave, strong minds so they can deal with other obstacles that come their way. However scaring a child to be brave is not the way to go about it. For a good example, "There was the experience of feeling death without dying that came from watching a chicken leap about blindly after its neck had been snapped by a quick twist of my father's wrist" (Wright, 1944). How can a child not be traumatized by a sight like this? The thought of having feelings of death is not a way to spend my young life. This was not the only image where he felt death and astonishment. "There was the speechless astonishment of seeing a hog stabbed through the heart, dipped into boiling water, scraped, split open, gutted, and strung up gaping and bloody"(Wright, 1944).