Beautiful Joe (21 page)

“Isn’t it
a strange thing,” said Miss Laura, “that a little thing like a fly, can cause
so much annoyance to animals as well to people? Sometimes when I am trying to
get more sleep in the morning, their little feet tickle me so that I am nearly
frantic and have to fly out of bed.”

“You shall
have some netting to put over your bed,” said Mrs. Wood; “but suppose, Laura,
you had no hands to brush away the flies. Suppose your whole body was covered
with them; and you were tied up somewhere and could not get loose. I can’t
imagine more exquisite torture myself. Last summer the flies here were
dreadful. It seems to me that they are getting worse and worse every year, and
worry the animals more. I believe it is because the birds are getting thinned
out all over the country. There are not enough of them to catch the flies. John
says that the next improvements we make on the farm are to be wire gauze at all
the stable windows and screen doers to keep the little pests from the horses
and cattle.

“One
afternoon last summer, Mr. Maxwell’s mother came for me to go for a drive with
her. The heat was intense, and when we got down by the river, she proposed
getting out of the phaeton and sitting under the trees, to see if it would be
any cooler. She was driving a horse that she had got from the hotel in the
village, a roan horse that was clipped, and check-reined, and had his tail
docked. I wouldn’t drive behind a tailless horse now. Then, I wasn’t so
particular. However, I made her unfasten the check-rein before I’d set foot in
the carriage. Well, I thought that horse would go mad. He’d tremble and shiver
and look go pitifully at us. The flies were nearly eating him up. Then he’d
start a little. Mrs. Maxwell had a weight at his head to hold him, but he could
easily have dragged that. He was a good dispositioned horse, and he didn’t want
to run away, but he could not stand still. I soon jumped up and slapped him,
and rubbed him till my hands were dripping wet. The poor brute was so grateful
and would keep touching my arm with his nose. Mrs. Maxwell sat under the trees
fanning herself and laughing at me, but I didn’t care. How could I enjoy myself
with a dumb creature writhing in pain before me?”

“A docked
horse can neither eat nor sleep comfortably in the fly season. In one of our New
England villages they have a sign up, ‘Horses taken in to grass. Long tails,
one dollar and fifty cents. Short tails, one dollar.’ And it just means that
the short-tailed ones are taken on cheaper, because they are so bothered by the
flies that they can’t eat much, while the long-tailed ones are able to brush
them away and eat in peace. I read the other day of a Buffalo coal dealer’s
horse that was in such an agony through flies, that he committed suicide. You
know animals will do that. I’ve read of horses and dogs drowning themselves.
This horse had been clipped and his tail was docked, and he was turned out to
graze. The flies stung him till he was nearly crazy. He ran up to a picket
fence, and sprang up on the sharp spikes. There he hung, making no effort to
get down. Some men saw him, and they said it was a clear case of suicide.

“I would
like to have the power to take every man who cuts off a horse’s tail, and tie
his hands, and turn him out in a field in the hot sun, with little clothing on,
and plenty of flies about. Then we would see if he wouldn’t sympathize with the
poor, dumb beast. It’s the most senseless thing in the world, this docking
fashion. They’ve a few flimsy arguments about a horse with a docked tail being
stronger-backed, like a short-tailed sheep, but I don’t believe a word of it.
The horse was made strong enough to do the work he’s got to do, and man can’t
improve on him. Docking is a cruel, wicked thing. Now, there’s a ghost of an argument
in favor of check-reins, on certain occasions. A fiery, young horse can’t run
away, with an overdrawn check, and in speeding horses a tight check-rein will
make them hold their heads up, and keep them from choking. But I don’t believe
in raising colts in a way to make them fiery, and I wish there wasn’t a race
horse on the face of the earth, so if it depended race on me, every kind of
check-rein would go. It’s pity we women can’t vote, Laura. We’d do away with a
good many abuses.”

Miss Laura
smiled, but it was a very faint, almost an unhappy smile, and Mrs. Wood said
hastily, “Let us talk about something else. Did you ever hear that cows will
give less milk on a dark day than on a bright one?”

“No; I
never did,” said Miss Laura.

“Well,
they do. They are most sensitive animals. One finds out all manner of things
about animals if he makes a study of them. Cows are wonderful creatures, I
think, and so grateful for good usage that they return every scrap of care
given them, with interest. Have you ever heard anything about dehorning, Laura?”

“Not much,
auntie. Does uncle approve?”

“No,
indeed. He’d just as soon think of cutting their tails off, as of dehorning
them. He says he guesses the Creator knew how to make a cow better than he
does. Sometimes I tell John that his argument doesn’t hold good for a man in
some ways can improve on nature. In the natural course of things, a cow would
be feeding her calf for half a year, but we take it away from her, raise it as
well as she could and get an extra quantity of milk from her in addition. I don’t
know what to think myself about dehorning. Mr. Windham’s cattle are all polled,
and he has an open space in his barn for them, instead of keeping them in
stalls, and he says they’re more comfortable and not so confined. I suppose in
sending cattle to sea, it’s necessary to take their horns off, but when they’re
going to be turned out to grass, it seems like mutilating them. Our cows couldn’t
keep the dogs away from the sheep if they didn’t have their horns. Their horns
are their means of defense.”

“Do your cattle
stand in these stalls all winter?” asked Miss Laura.

“Oh, yes,
except when they’re turned out in the barnyard, and then John usually has to
send a man to keep them moving or they’d take cold. Sometimes on very fine days
they get out all day. You know cows aren’t like horses. John says they’re like
great milk machines. You’ve got to keep them quiet, only exercising enough to
keep them in health. If a cow is hurried or worried or chilled or heated, it
stops her milk yield. And bad usage poisons it. John says you can’t take a
stick and strike a cow across the back, without her milk being that much worse,
and as for drinking the milk that comes from a cow that isn’t kept clean, you’d
better throw it away and drink water. When I was in Chicago, my sister-in-law
kept complaining to her milkman about what she called the ‘cowy’ smell to her
milk. ‘It’s the animal odor, ma’am,’ he said, ‘and it can’t be helped. All milk
smells like that.’ ‘It’s dirt,’ I said, when she asked my opinion about it. ‘I’ll
wager my best bonnet that that man’s cows are kept dirty. Their skins are
plastered up with filth and as the poison in them can’t escape that way, it’s
coming out through the milk, and you’re helping to dispose of it.’ She was
astonished to hear this, and she got her milkman’s address, and one day dropped
in upon him. She said that this cows were standing in a stable that was comparatively
clean, but that their bodies were in just the state that I described them as
living in. She advised the man to card and brush his cows every day, and said
that he need bring her no more milk.

“That
shows how you city people are imposed upon with regard to your milk. I should
think you’d be poisoned with the treatment your cows receive; and even when
your milk is examined you can’t tell whether it is pure or not. In New York the
law only requires thirteen per cent of solids in milk. That’s absurd, for you
can feed a cow on swill and still get fourteen per cent of solids in it. Oh!
you city people are queer.”

Miss Laura
laughed heartily. “What a prejudice you have against large towns, auntie.”

“Yes, I
have,” said Mrs. Wood, honestly. “I often wish we could break up a few of our
cities, and scatter the people through the country. Look at the lovely farms
all about here, some of them with only an old man and woman on them. The boys
are off to the cities, slaving in stores and offices, and growing pale and
sickly. It would have broken my heart if Harry had taken to city ways. I had a
plain talk with your uncle when I married him, and said, ‘Now my boy’s only a
baby and I want him to be brought up so that he will love country life. How are
we going to manage it?’

“Your
uncle looked at me with a sly twinkle in his eye, and said I was a pretty fair
specimen of a country girl, suppose we brought up Harry the way I’d been
brought up. I knew he was only joking, yet I got quite excited. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Do
as my father and mother did. Have a farm about twice as large as you can
manage. Don’t keep a hired man. Get up at daylight and slave till dark. Never
take a holiday. Have the girls do the housework, and take care of the hens, and
help pick the fruit, and make the boys tend the colts and the calves, and put
all the money they make in the bank. Don’t take any papers, or they would waste
their time reading them, and it’s too far to go the post office oftener than
once a week; and—’ but I don’t remember the rest of what I said. Anyway, your uncle
burst into a roar of laughter. ‘Hattie,’ he said, ‘my farm’s too big. I’m going
to sell some of it, and enjoy myself a little more.’ That very week he sold
fifty acres, and he hired an extra man, and got me a good girl, and twice a
week he left his work in the afternoon and took me for a drive. Harry held the
reins in his tiny fingers, and John told him that Dolly, the old mare we were
driving, should be called his, and the very next horse he bought should be
called his too, and he should name it and have it for his own; and he would
give him five sheep, and he should have his own bank book and keep his
accounts; and Harry understood, mere baby though he was, and from that day he
loved John as his own father. If my father had had the wisdom that John has,
his boys wouldn’t be the one a poor lawyer and the other a poor doctor in two different
cities; and our farm wouldn’t be in the hands of strangers. It makes me sick to
go there. I think of my poor mother lying with her red hands crossed out in the
churchyard, and the boys so far away, and my father always hurrying and driving
us I can tell you, Laura, the thing cuts both ways. It isn’t all the fault of
the boys that they leave the country.”

Mrs. Wood
was silent for a little while after she made this long speech, and Miss Laura
said nothing. I took a turn or two up and down the stable, thinking of many
things. No matter how happy human beings seem to be, they always have something
to worry them. I was sorry for Mrs. Wood for her face had lost the happy look
it usually wore. However, she soon forgot her trouble, and said:

“Now, I
must go and get the tea. This is Adèle’s afternoon out.”

“I’ll
come, too,” said Miss Laura, “for I promised her I’d make the biscuits for tea
this evening and let you rest.” They both sauntered slowly down the plank walk
to the house, and I followed them.

In
October, the most beautiful of all the months, we were obliged to go back to
Fairport. Miss Laura could not bear to leave the farm, and her face got very
sorrowful when any one spoke of her going away. Still, she had gotten well and
strong, and was as brown as a berry, and she said that she knew she ought to go
home, and get back to her lessons.

Mr. Wood
called October the golden month. Everything was quiet and still, and at night
and in the morning the sun had a yellow, misty look. The trees in the orchard
were loaded with fruit, and some of the leaves were floating down, making a
soft covering on the ground.

In the
garden there were a great many flowers in bloom, in flaming red and yellow colours.
Miss Laura gathered bunches of them every day to put in the parlour. One day
when she was arranging them, she said, regretfully, “They will soon be gone. I
wish it could always be summer.”

“You would
get tired of it,” said Mr. Harry, who had come up softly behind her. “There’s
only one place where we could stand perpetual summer, and that’s in heaven.”

“Do you
suppose that it will always be summer there?” said Miss Laura, turning around,
and looking at him.

“I don’t
know. I imagine it will be, but don’t think anybody knows much about it. We’ve
got to wait.”

Miss Laura’s
eyes fell on me. “Harry,” she said, “do you think that dumb animals will go to
heaven?”

“I shall
have to say again, I don’t know,” he replied. “Some people hold that they do.
In a Michigan paper, the other day, I came across one writer’s opinion on the
subject. He says that among the best people of all ages have been some who
believed in the future life of animals. Homer and the later Greeks, some of the
Romans and early Christians held this view—the last believing that God sent
angels in the shape of birds to comfort sufferers for the faith. St. Francis
called the birds and beasts his brothers. Dr. Johnson believed in a future life
for animals, as also did Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Jeremy Taylor, Agassiz,
Lamartine, and many Christian scholars. It seems as if they ought to have some
compensation for their terrible sufferings in this world. Then to go to heaven,
animals would only have to take up the thread of their lives here. Man is a god
to the lower creation. Joe worships you, much as you worship your Maker. Dumb
animals live in and for their masters. They hang on our words and looks, and
are dependent on us in almost every way. For my own part, and looking at it
from an earthly point of view, I wish with all my heart that we may find our
dumb friends in paradise.”

“And in
the Bible,” said Miss Laura, “animals are often spoken of. The dove and the
raven, the wolf and the lamb, and the leopard, and the cattle that God says are
his, and the little sparrow that can’t fall to the ground without our Father’s
knowing it.”

“Still,
there’s nothing definite about their immortality,” said Mr. Harry. “However, we’ve
got nothing to do with that. If it’s right for them to be in heaven, we’ll find
them there. All we have to do now is to deal with the present, and the Bible
plainly tells us that ‘a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.’”

“I think I
would be happier in heaven if dear old Joe were there,” said Miss Laura,
looking wistfully at me. “He has been such a good dog. Just think how he has
loved and protected me. I think I should be lonely without him.”

“That
reminds me of some poetry, or rather doggerel,” said Mr. Harry, “that I cut out
of a newspaper for you yesterday;” and he drew from his pocket a little slip of
paper, and read this:

“Do
doggies gang to heaven, Dad?

Will oor
auld Donald gang?

For noo to
tak’ him, faither wi’ us,

Wad be
maist awfu’ wrang.”

There was
a number of other verses, telling how many kind things old Donald the dog had
done for his master’s family, and then it closed with these lines:

“Withoot
are dogs. Eh, faither, man,

’Twould be
an awfu’ sin

To leave
oor faithfu’ doggie there,

He’s
certain to win in.

“Oor
Donald’s no like ither dogs,

He’ll no
be lockit oot,

If Donald’s
no let into heaven,

I’ll no
gang there one foot.”

“My
sentiments exactly,” said a merry voice behind Miss Laura and Mr. Harry, and
looking up they saw Mr. Maxwell. He was holding out one hand to them, and in
the other kept back a basket of large pears that Mr. Harry promptly took from
him, and offered to Miss Laura “I’ve been dependent upon animals for the most
part of my comfort in this life,” said Mr. Maxwell, “and I sha’n’t be happy
without them in heaven. I don’t see how you would get on without Joe, Miss
Morris, and I want my birds, and my snake, and my horse—how can I live without
them? They’re almost all my life here.”

“If some
animals go to heaven and not others, I think that the dog has the first claim,”
said Miss Laura. “He’s the friend of man—the oldest and best. Have you ever
heard the legend about him and Adam?”

“No,” said
Mr. Maxwell.

“Well,
when Adam was turned out of paradise, all the animals shunned him, and he sat
bitterly weeping with his head between his hands, when he felt the soft tongue
of some creature gently touching him. He took his hands from his face, and
there was a dog that had separated himself from all the other animals, and was
trying to comfort him. He became the chosen friend and companion of Adam,
afterward of all men.”

“There is
another legend,” said Mr. Harry, “about our Saviour and a dog. Have you ever
heard it?”

“We’ll
tell you that later,” said Mr. Maxwell, “when we know what it is.”

Mr. Harry
showed his white teeth in an amused smile, and began “Once upon a time our Lord
was going through a town with his disciples. A dead dog lay by the wayside, and
every one that passed along flung some offensive epithet at him. Eastern dogs
are not like our dogs, and seemingly there was nothing good about this loathsome
creature, but as our Saviour went by, he said, gently, ‘Pearls cannot equal the
whiteness of his teeth.’”

“What was
the name of that old fellow,” said Mr. Maxwell, abruptly, “who had a beautiful
swan that came every day for fifteen years, to bury its head in his bosom and
feed from his hand, and would go near no other human being?”

“Saint
Hugh, of Lincoln. We heard about him at the Band of Mercy the other day,” said
Miss Laura.

“I should
think that he would have wanted to have that swan in heaven with him,” said Mr.
Maxwell. “What a beautiful creature it must have been. Speaking about animals
going to heaven, I dare say some of them would object to going, on account of
the company that they would meet there. Think of the dog kicked to death by his
master, the horse driven into his grave, the thousands of cattle starved to
death on the plains—will they want to meet their owners in heaven?”

“According
to my reckoning, their owners won’t be there,” said Mr. Harry. “I firmly
believe that the Lord will punish every man or woman who ill-treats a dumb
creature just as surely as he will punish those who ill-treat their fellow creatures.
If a man’s life has been a long series of cruelty to dumb animals, do you
suppose that he would enjoy himself in heaven, which will be full of kindness
to every one? Not he; he’d rather be in the other place, and there he’ll go, I
fully believe.”

“When you’ve
quite disposed of all your fellow creatures and the dumb creation, Harry,
perhaps you will condescend to go out into the orchard and see how your father
is getting on with picking the apples,” said Mrs. Wood, joining Miss Laura and
the two young men, her eyes twinkling and sparkling with amusement.

“The
apples will keep, mother,” said Mr. Harry, putting his arm around her. “I just
came in for a moment to get Laura. Come, Maxwell, we’ll all go.”

“And not
another word about animals,” Mrs. Wood called after them. “Laura will go crazy
someday, through thinking of their sufferings, if someone doesn’t do something
to stop her.”

Miss Laura
turned around suddenly. “Dear Aunt Hattie,” she said, “you must not say that. I
am a coward, I know, about hearing of animals’ pains, but I must get over it. I
want to know how they suffer. I ought to know, for when I get to be a woman, I
am going to do all I can to help them.”

“And I’ll
join you,” said Mr. Maxwell, stretching out his hand to Miss Laura, She did not
smile, but looking very earnestly at him, she held it clasped in her own. “You
will help me to care for them, will you?” she said.

“Yes, I
promise,” he said, gravely. “I’ll give myself to the service of dumb animals,
if you will.”

“And I,
too,” said Mr. Harry, in his deep voice, laying his hand across theirs. Mrs.
Wood stood looking at their three fresh, eager, young faces, with tears in her
eyes. Just as they all stood silently for an instant, the old village clergyman
came into the room from the hall. He must have heard what they said, for before
they could move he had laid his hands on their three brown heads. “Bless you,
my children,” he said, “God will lift up the light of his countenance upon you,
for you have given yourselves to a noble work. In serving dumb creatures, you
are ennobling the human race.”

Then he
sat down in a chair and looked at them. He was a venerable old man, and had
long, white hair, and the Woods thought a great deal of him. He had come to get
Mrs. Wood to make some nourishing dishes for a sick woman in the village, and
while he was talking to her, Miss Laura and the two young men went out of the
house. They hurried across the veranda and over the lawn, talking and laughing,
and enjoying themselves as only happy young people can and with not a trace of
their seriousness of a few moments before on their faces.

They were
going so fast that they ran right into a flock of geese that were coming up the
lane. They were driven by a little boy called Tommy, the son of one of Mr. Wood’s
farm laborers, and they were chattering and gabbling, and seemed very angry. “What’s
all this about?” said Mr. Harry, stopping and looking at the boy. “What’s the
matter with your feathered charges, Tommy my lad?”

“If it’s
the geese you mean,” said the boy half crying and looking very much put out, “it’s
all them nasty potatoes. They won’t keep away from them.”

“So the
potatoes chase the geese, do they?” said Mr. Maxwell, teasingly.

“No, no,”
said the child, pettishly; “Mr. Wood he sets me to watch the geese, and they
runs in among the buckwheat and the potatoes and I tries to drive them out, and
they doesn’t want to come, and,” shamefacedly, “I has to switch their feet, and
I hates to do it, ‘cause I’m a Band of Mercy boy.”

“Tommy, my
son,” said Mr. Maxwell, solemnly “you will go right to heaven when you die, and
your geese will go with you.”

“Hush,
hush,” said Miss Laura, “don’t tease him,” and putting her arm on the child’s
shoulder, she said, “You are a good boy, Tommy, not to want to hurt the geese.
Let me see your switch, dear.”

He showed
her a little stick he had in his hand, and she said, “I don’t think you could
hurt them much with that, and if they will be naughty and steal the potatoes,
you have to drive them out. Take some of my pears and eat them, and you will
forget your trouble.” The child took the fruit, and Miss Laura and the two
young men went on their way, smiling, and looking over their shoulders at
Tommy, who stood in the lane, devouring his pears and keeping one eye on the
geese that had gathered a little in front of him, and were gabbling noisily and
having a kind of indignation meeting, because they had been driven out of the potato
field.

Tommy’s
father and mother lived in a little house down near the road. Mr. Wood never
had his hired men live in his own house. He had two small houses for them to
live in, and they were required to keep them as neat as Mr. Wood’s own house
was kept. He said that he didn’t see why he should keep a boarding house, if he
was a farmer, nor why his wife should wear herself out waiting on strong,
hearty men, that had just as soon take care of themselves. He wished to have
his own family about him, and it was better for his men to have some kind of
family life for themselves. If one of his men was unmarried, he boarded with
the married one, but slept in his own house.

On this
October day we found Mr. Wood hard at work under the fruit trees. He had a good
many different kind of apples. Enormous red ones, and long, yellow ones that
they called pippins, and little brown ones, and smooth-coated sweet ones, and
bright red ones, and others, more than I could mention. Miss Laura often pared
one and cut off little bits for me, for I always wanted to eat whatever I saw
her eating.

Just a few
days after this, Miss Laura and I returned to Fairport, and some of Mr. Wood’s
apples traveled along with us, for he sent a good many to the Boston market.
Mr. and Mrs. Wood came to the station to see us off. Mr. Harry could not come,
for he had left Riverdale the day before to go back to his college. Mrs. Wood
said that she would be very lonely without her two young people, and she kissed
Miss Laura over and over again, and made her promise to come back again the
next summer.

I was put
in a box in the express car, and Mr. Wood told the agent that if he knew what
was good for him he would speak to me occasionally for I was a very knowing
dog, and if he didn’t treat me well, I’d be apt to write him up in the
newspapers. The agent laughed, and quite often on the way to Fairport, he came
to my box and spoke kindly to me. So I did not get so lonely and frightened as
I did on my way to Riverdale.

How glad
the Morrises were to see us coming back. The boys had all gotten home before
us, and such a fuss as they did make over their sister. They loved her dearly,
and never wanted her to be long away from them. I was rubbed and stroked, and
had to run about offering my paw to everyone. Jim and little Billy licked my
face, and Bella croaked out, “Glad to see you, Joe. Had a good time? How’s your
health?”