Beautiful Joe (4 page)

The tears
came in Mrs. Morris’ eyes. She looked at the little, frail lady, and said,
simply: “Dear Mrs. Montague, I think the root of the whole matter lies in this.
The Lord made us all one family. We are all brothers and sisters. The lowest
woman is your sister and my sister. The man lying in the gutter is our brother
What should we do to help these members of our common family, who are not as
well off as we are? We should share our last crust with them. You and I, but
for God’s grace in placing us in different surroundings, might be in their
places. I think it is wicked neglect, criminal neglect in us to ignore this
fact.”

“It is, it
is,” said Mrs. Montague, in a despairing voice. “I can’t help feeling it. Tell
me something I can do to help someone.”

Mrs.
Morris sank back in her chair, her face very sad, and yet with something like
pleasure in her eyes as she looked at her caller. “Your washerwoman,” she said,
“has a drunken husband and a cripple boy. I have often seen her standing over
her tub, washing your delicate muslins and laces, and dropping tears into the
water.”

“I will
never send her anything more—she shall not be troubled,” said Mrs. Montague,
hastily.

Mrs.
Morris could not help smiling. “I have not made myself clear. It is not the
washing that troubles her; it is her husband who beats her, and her boy who
worries her. If you and I take our work from her, she will have that much less
money to depend upon, and will suffer in consequence, She is a hard-working and
capable woman, and makes a fair living. I would not advise you to give her
money, for her husband would find it out, and take it from her. It is sympathy
that she wants. If you could visit her occasionally, and show that you are
interested in her, by talking or reading to her poor foolish boy or showing him
a picture book, you have no idea how grateful she would be to you, and how it
would cheer her on her dreary way.”

“I will go
to see her tomorrow,” said Mrs. Montague. “Can you think of anyone else I could
visit?”

“A great
many,” said Mrs. Morris; “but I don’t think you had better undertake too much
at once. I will give you the addresses of three or four poor families, where an
occasional visit would do untold good. That is, it will do them good if you
treat them as you do your richer friends. Don’t give them too much money, or
too many presents, till you find out what they need. Try to feel interested in
them. Find out their ways of living, and what they are going to do with their
children, and help them to get situations for them if you can. And be sure to
remember that poverty does not always take away one’s self-respect.”

“I will, I
will,” said Mrs. Montague, eagerly. “When can you give me these addresses?”

Mrs.
Morris smiled again, and, taking a piece of paper and a pencil from her work
basket wrote a few lines and handed them to Mrs. Montague.

The lady
got up to take her leave. “And in regard to the dog,” said Mrs. Morris,
following her to the door, “if you decide to allow Charlie to have one, you had
better let him come in and have a talk with my boys about it. They seem to know
all the dogs that are for sale in the town.”

“Thank
you; I shall be most happy to do so. He shall have his dog. When can you have
him?”

“Tomorrow,
the next day, any day at all. It makes no difference to me. Let him spend an
afternoon and evening with the boys, if you do not object.”

“It will
give me much pleasure,” and the little lady bowed and smiled, and after
stooping down to pat me, tripped down the steps, and got into her carriage and
drove away.

Mrs.
Morris stood looking after her with a beaming face, and I began to think that I
should like Mrs. Montague, too, if I knew her long enough. Two days later I was
quite sure I should, for I had a proof that she really liked me. When her
little boy Charlie came to the house, he brought something for me done up in
white paper. Mrs. Morris opened it, and there was a handsome nickel-plated
collar, with my name on it—
Beautiful Joe
. Wasn’t I pleased! They took
off the little shabby leather strap that the boys had given me when I came, and
fastened on my new collar and then Mrs. Morris held me up to a glass to look at
myself. I felt so happy. Up to this time I had felt a little ashamed of my
cropped ears and docked tail, but now that I had a fine new collar I could hold
up my head with any dog.

“Dear old
Joe,” said Mrs. Morris, pressing my head tightly between her hands. “You did a
good thing the other day in helping me to start that little woman out of her
selfish way of living.”

I did not
know about that, but I knew that I felt very grateful to Mrs. Montague for my
new collar, and ever afterward, when I met her in the street, I stopped and
looked at her. Sometimes she saw me and stopped her carriage to speak to me;
but I always wagged my tail—or rather my body, for I had no tail to wag—whenever
I saw her, whether she saw me or not.

Her son
got a beautiful Irish setter, called Brisk. He had a silky coat and soft brown
eyes, and his young master seemed very fond of him.

When I
came to the Morris family, I knew nothing about the proper way of bringing up a
puppy. I once heard of a little boy whose sister beat him so much that he said
he was brought up by hand; so I think as Jenkins kicked me so much, I may say
that I was brought up by foot.

Shortly
after my arrival in my new home, I had a chance of seeing how one should bring
up a little puppy.

One day I
was sitting beside Miss Laura in the parlour, when the door opened and Jack
came in. One of his hands was laid over the other, and he said to his sister, “Guess
what I’ve got here.”

“A bird,”
she said.

“No.”

“A rat.”

“No.”

“A mouse.”

“No—a pup.”

“Oh, Jack,”
she said, reprovingly; for she thought he was telling a story.

He opened
his hands and there lay the tiniest morsel of a fox terrier puppy that I ever
saw. He was white, with black and tan markings. His body was pure white, his
tail black, with a dash of tan; his ears black, and his face evenly marked with
black and tan. We could not tell the colour of his eyes, as they were not open.
Later on, they turned out to be a pretty brown. His nose was pale pink, and
when he got older, it became jet black.

“Why,
Jack!” exclaimed Miss Laura, “his eyes aren’t open; why did you take him from
his mother?”

“She’s
dead,” said Jack. “Poisoned—left her pups to run about the yard for a little
exercise. Some brute had thrown over a piece of poisoned meat, and she ate it.
Four of the pups died. This is the only one left. Mr. Robinson says his man
doesn’t understand raising pups without their mothers, and as he is going away,
he wants us to have it, for we always had such luck in nursing sick animals.”

Mr.
Robinson I knew was a friend of the Morrises and a gentleman who was fond of
fancy stock, and imported a great deal of it from England. If this puppy came
from him, it was sure to be good one.

Miss Laura
took the tiny creature, and went upstairs very thoughtfully. I followed her,
and watched her get a little basket and line it with cotton wool. She put the
puppy in it and looked at him. Though it was midsummer and the house seemed
very warm to me, the little creature was shivering, and making a low murmuring
noise. She pulled the wool all over him and put the window down, and set his
basket in the sun.

Then she
went to the kitchen and got some warm milk. She dipped her finger in it, and
offered it to the puppy, but he went nosing about it in a stupid way, and wouldn’t
touch it. “Too young,” Miss Laura said. She got a little piece of muslin, put
some bread in it, tied a string round it, and dipped it in the milk. When she
put this to the puppy’s mouth, he sucked it greedily. He acted as if he was
starving, but Miss Laura only let him have a little.

Every few
hours for the rest of the day, she gave him some more milk, and I heard the
boys say that for many nights she got up once or twice and heated milk over a
lamp for him. One night the milk got cold before he took it, and he swelled up
and became so ill that Miss Laura had to rouse her mother and get some hot
water to plunge him in. That made him well again, and no one seemed to think it
was a great deal of trouble to take for a creature that was nothing but a dog.

He fully
repaid them for all his care, for he turned out to be one of the prettiest and
most lovable dogs that I ever saw. They called him Billy, and the two events of
his early life were the opening of his eyes and the swallowing of his muslin
rag. The rag did not seem to hurt him, but Miss Laura said that, as he had got
so strong and greedy, he must learn to eat like other dogs.

He was
very amusing when he was a puppy. He was full of tricks, and he crept about in
a mischievous way when one did not know he was near. He was a very small puppy
and used to climb inside Miss Laura’s Jersey sleeve up to her shoulder when he
was six weeks old. One day, when the whole family was in the parlour, Mr.
Morris suddenly flung aside his newspaper, and began jumping up and down. Mrs.
Morris was very much alarmed, and cried out, “My dear William what is the
matter?”

“There’s a
rat up my leg,” he said, shaking it violently. Just then little Billy fell out
on the floor and lay on his back looking up at Mr. Morris with a surprised
face. He had felt cold and thought it would be warm inside Mr. Morris’ trouser’s
leg.

However,
Billy never did any real mischief, thanks to Miss Laura’s training. She began
to punish him just as soon as he began to tear and worry things. The first
thing he attacked was Mr. Morris’ felt hat. The wind blew it down the hall one
day, and Billy came along and began to try it with his teeth. I dare say it
felt good to them, for a puppy is very like a baby and loves something to bite.

Miss Laura
found him, and he rolled his eyes at her quite innocently, not knowing that he
was doing wrong. She took the hat away, and pointing from it to him, said, “Bad
Billy!” Then she gave him two or three slaps with a bootlace. She never struck
a little dog with her hand or a stick. She said clubs were for big dogs and
switches for little dogs, if one had to use them. The best way was to scold
them, for a good dog feels a severe scolding as much as a whipping.

Billy was
very much ashamed of himself. Nothing would induce him even to look at a hat
again. But he thought it was no harm to worry other things. He attacked one
thing after another, the rugs on the floor, curtains, anything flying or
fluttering, and Miss Laura patiently scolded him for each one, till at last it
dawned upon him that he must not worry anything but a bone. Then he got to be a
very good dog.

There was
one thing that Miss Laura was very particular about, and that was to have him
fed regularly. We both got three meals a day. We were never allowed to go into
the dining room, and while the family was at the table, we lay in the hall
outside and watched what was going on.

Dogs take
a great interest in what any one gets to eat. It was quite exciting to see the
Morrises’ passing each other different dishes, and to smell the nice, hot food.
Billy often wished that he could get up on the table. He said that he would
make things fly. When he was growing, he hardly ever got enough to eat. I used
to tell him that he would kill himself if he could eat all he wanted.

As soon as
meals were over, Billy and I scampered after Miss Laura to the kitchen. We each
had our own plate for food. Mary the cook often laughed at Miss Laura, because
she would not let her dogs “dish” together. Miss Laura said that if she did,
the larger one would get more than his share, and the little one would starve.

It was
quite a sight to see Billy eat. He spread his legs apart to steady himself, and
gobbled at his food like a duck. When he finished he always looked up for more,
and Miss Laura would shake her head and say: “No, Billy: better longing than
loathing. I believe that a great many little dogs are killed by overfeeding.”

I often
heard the Morrises speak of the foolish way in which some people stuffed their
pets with food, and either kill them by it or keep them in continual ill
health. A case occurred in our neighborhood while Billy was a puppy. Some
people, called Dobson, who lived only a few doors from the Morrises, had a fine
bay mare and a little colt called Sam. They were very proud of this colt, and
Mr. Dobson had promised it to his son James. One day Mr. Dobson asked Mr.
Morris to come in and see the colt, and I went, too. I watched Mr. Morris while
he examined it. It was a pretty little creature, and I did not wonder that they
thought so much of it.

When Mr.
Morris went home his wife asked him what he thought of it.

“I think,”
he said, “that it won’t live long.”

“Why,
papa!” exclaimed Jack, who overheard the remark, “it is as fat as a seal.”

“It would
have a better chance for its life if it were lean and scrawny,” said Mr.
Morris. “They are over-feeding it, and I told Mr. Dobson so; but he wasn’t
inclined to believe me.”

Now, Mr.
Morris had been brought up in the country, and knew a great deal about animals,
so I was inclined to think he was right. And sure enough, in a few days, we
heard that the colt was dead.

Poor James
Dobson felt very badly. A number of the neighbors’ boys went into see him, and
there he stood gazing at the dead colt, and looking as if he wanted to cry.
Jack was there and I was at his heels, and though he said nothing for a time, I
knew he was angry with the Dobsons for sacrificing the colt’s life. Presently
he said, “You won’t need to have that colt stuffed now he’s dead, Dobson.”

“What do
you mean? Why do you say that?” asked the boy, peevishly.

“Because
you stuffed him while he was alive,” said Jack, saucily.

Then we
had to run for all we were worth, for the Dobson boy was after us, and as he
was a big fellow he would have whipped Jack soundly.

I must not
forget to say that Billy was washed regularly—once a week with nice-smelling
soaps and once a month with strong-smelling, disagreeable, carbolic soap. He
had his own towels and wash cloths, and after being rubbed and scrubbed, he was
rolled in a blanket and put by the fire to dry. Miss Laura said that a little
dog that has been petted and kept in the house, and has become tender, should
never be washed and allowed to run about with a wet coat, unless the weather was
very warm, for he would be sure to take cold.

Jim and I
were more hardy than Billy, and we took our baths in the sea. Every few days
the boys took us down to the shore and we went swimming with them.