Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders (most important books of all time txt) 📕

PREFACE

Beautiful Joe is a real dog, and "Beautiful Joe" is his real name. He

belonged during the first part of his life to a cruel master, who

mutilated him in the manner described in the story. He was rescued from

him, and is now living in a happy home with pleasant surroundings, and

enjoys a wide local celebrity.

 

The character of Laura is drawn from life, and to the smallest detail is

truthfully depicted. The Morris family has its counterparts in real

life, and nearly all of the incidents of the story are founded on

fact.--THE AUTHOR.

INTRODUCTION

 

The wonderfully successful book, entitled "Black Beauty," came like a

living voice out of the animal kingdom. But it spake for the horse, and

made other books necessary; it led the way. After the ready welcome that

it received, and the good it has accomplished and is doing, it followed

naturally that some one should be inspired to write a book to interpret

the life of a dog to the humane feeling of the world. Such a story we

have in "Beautiful Joe."

 

The story speaks not for the dog alone, but for the whole animal

kingdom. Through it we enter the animal world, and are made to see as

animals see, and to feel as animals feel. The sympathetic sight of the

author, in this interpretation, is ethically the strong feature of the

book.

 

Such books as this is one of the needs of our progressive system of

education. The day-school, the Sunday-school, and all libraries for the

young, demand the influence that shall teach the reader how to live in

sympathy with the animal world; how to understand the languages of the

creatures that we have long been accustomed to call "dumb," and the sign

language of the lower orders of these dependent beings. The church owes

it to her mission to preach and to teach the enforcement of the "bird's

nest commandment;" the principle recognized by Moses in the Hebrew

world, and echoed by Cowper in English poetry, and Burns in the "Meadow

Mouse," and by our own Longfellow in songs of many keys.

 

Kindness to the animal kingdom is the first, or a first principle in the

growth of true philanthropy. Young Lincoln once waded across a

half-frozen river to rescue a dog, and stopped in a walk with a

statesman to put back a bird that had fallen out of its nest. Such a

heart was trained to be a leader of men, and to be crucified for a

cause. The conscience that runs to the call of an animal in distress is

girding itself with power to do manly work in the world.

 

The story of "Beautiful Joe" awakens an intense interest, and sustains

it through a series of vivid incidents and episodes, each of which is a

lesson. The story merits the widest circulation, and the universal

reading and response accorded to "Black Beauty." To circulate it is to

do good; to help the human heart as well as the creatures of quick

feelings and simple language.

 

When, as one of the committee to examine the manuscripts offered for

prizes to the Humane Society, I read the story, I felt that the writer

had a higher motive than to compete for a prize; that the story was a

stream of sympathy that flowed from the heart; that it was genuine; that

it only needed a publisher who should be able to command a wide

influence, to make its merits known, to give it a strong educational

mission.

 

I am pleased that the manuscript has found such a publisher, and am sure

that the issue of the story will honor the Publication Society. In the

development of the book, I believe that the humane cause has stood above

any speculative thought or interest. The book comes because it is called

for; the times demand it. I think that the publishers have a right to

ask for a little unselfish service on the part of the public in helping

to give it a circulation commensurate with its opportunity, need, and

influence.

 

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

 

(Of the committee of readers of the prize stories offered to the Humane

Society.)

 

BOSTON, MASS., Dec., 1893.

CONTENTS

 

CHAPTER

 

ONLY A CUR

 

THE CRUEL MILKMAN

 

III. MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA

 

THE MORRIS BOYS ADD TO MY NAME

 

MY NEW HOME AND A SELFISH LADY

 

THE FOX TERRIER BILLY

 

VII. TRAINING A PUPPY

 

VIII. A RUINED DOG

 

THE PARROT BELLA

 

BILLY'S TRAINING CONTINUED

 

GOLDFISH AND CANARIES

 

XII. MALTA THE CAT

 

XIII. THE BEGINNING OF AN ADVENTURE

 

XIV. HOW WE CAUGHT THE BURGLAR

 

OUR JOURNEY TO RIVERDALE

 

XVI. DINGLEY FARM

 

XVII. MR. WOOD AND HIS HORSES

 

XVIII. MRS. WOOD'S POULTRY

 

XIX. A BAND OF MERCY

 

STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS

 

XXI. MR. MAXWELL AND MR. HARRY

 

XXII. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TEA TABLE

 

XXIII. TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS

 

XXIV. THE RABBIT AND THE HEN

 

XXV. A HAPPY HORSE

 

XXVI. THE BOX OF MONEY

 

XXVII. A NEGLECTED STABLE

 

XXVIII. THE END OF THE ENGLISHMAN

 

XXIX. A TALK ABOUT SHEEP

 

XXX. A JEALOUS OX

 

XXXI. IN THE COW STABLE

 

XXXII. OUR RETURN HOME

 

XXXIII. PERFORMING ANIMALS

 

XXXIV. A FIRE IN FAIRPORT

 

XXXV. BILLY AND THE ITALIAN

 

XXXVI. DANDY THE TRAMP

 

XXXVII. THE END OF MY STORY

CHAPTER I (ONLY A CUR)

My name is Beautiful Joe, and I am a brown dog of medium size. I am not

called Beautiful Joe because I am a beauty. Mr. Morris, the clergyman,

in whose family I have lived for the last twelve years, says that he

thinks I must be called Beautiful Joe for the same reason that his

grandfather, down South, called a very ugly colored slave-lad Cupid, and

his mother Venus.

 

I do not know what he means by that, but when he says it people always

look at me and smile. I know that I am not beautiful, and I know that I

am not a thoroughbred. I am only a cur.

 

When my mistress went every year to register me and pay my tax, and the

man in the office asked what breed I was, she said part fox-terrier and

part bull-terrier; but he always put me down a cur. I don't think she

liked having him call me a cur; still, I have heard her say that she

preferred curs, for they have more character than well-bred dogs. Her

father said that she liked ugly dogs for the same reason that a nobleman

at the court of a certain king did--namely, that no one else would.

 

I am an old dog now, and am writing, or rather getting a friend to

write, the story of my life. I have seen my mistress laughing and crying

over a little book that she says is a story of a horse's life, and

sometimes she puts the book down close to my nose to let me see the

pictures.

 

I love my dear mistress; I can say no more than that; I love her better

than any one else in the world; and I think it will please her if I

write the story of a dog's life. She loves dumb animals, and it always

grieves her to see them treated cruelly.

 

I have heard her say that if all the boys and girls in the world were to

rise up and say that there should be no more cruelty to animals, they

could put a stop to it. Perhaps it will help a little if I tell a story.

I am fond of boys and girls, and though I have seen many cruel men and

women, I have seen few cruel children. I think the more stories there

are written about dumb animals, the better it will be for us.

 

In telling my story, I think I had better begin at the first and come

right on to the end. I was born in a stable on the outskirts of a small

town in Maine called Fairport. The first thing I remember was lying

close to my mother and being very snug and warm. The next thing I

remember was being always hungry. I had a number of brothers and

sisters--six in all--and my mother never had enough milk for us. She was

always half starved herself, so she could not feed us properly.

 

I am very unwilling to say much about my early life, I have lived so

long in a family where there is never a harsh word spoken, and where no

one thinks of ill-treating anybody or anything, that it seems almost

wrong even to think or speak of such a matter as hurting a poor dumb

beast.

 

The man that owned my mother was a milkman. He kept one horse and three

cows, and he had a shaky old cart that he used to put his milk cans in.

I don't think there can be a worse man in the world than that milkman.

It makes me shudder now to think of him. His name was Jenkins, and I am

glad to think that he is getting punished now for his cruelty to poor

dumb animals and to human beings. If you think it is wrong that I am

glad, you must remember that I am only a dog.

 

The first notice that he took of me when I was a little puppy, just able

to stagger about, was to give me a kick that sent me into a corner of

the stable. He used to beat and starve my mother. I have seen him use

his heavy whip to punish her till her body was covered with blood. When

I got older I asked her why she did not run away. She said she did not

wish to; but I soon found out that the reason she did not run away, was

because she loved Jenkins. Cruel and savage as he was, she yet loved

him, and I believe she would have laid down her life for him.

 

Now that I am old, I know that there are more men in the world like

Jenkins. They are not crazy, they are not drunkards; they simply seem to

be possessed with a spirit of wickedness. There are well-to-do people,

yes, and rich people, who will treat animals, and even little children,

with such terrible cruelty, that one cannot even mention the things that

they are guilty of.

 

One reason for Jenkins' cruelty was his idleness. After he went his

rounds in the morning with his milk cans, he had nothing to do till late

in the