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

never, never effaced. Do

you not remember better than anything else, standing at your mother's

knee--the pressure of her hand, her kiss on your forehead?"

 

By this time our engine had arrived. A whistle was blowing, and nearly

every one was rushing from the room, the impatient old gentleman among

the first. Miss Laura was hurriedly trying to do up her shawl strap, and

I was standing by, wishing that I could help her. The old lady and the

young man were the only other people in the room, and we could not help

hearing what they said.

 

"Yes, I do," he said in a thick voice, and his face got very red. "She

is dead now--I have no mother."

 

"Poor boy!" and the old lady laid her hand on his shoulder. They were

standing up, and she was taller than he was. "May God bless you. I know

you have a kind heart. I have four stalwart boys, and you remind me of

the youngest. If you are ever in Washington come to see me." She gave

him some name, and he lifted his hat and looked as if he was astonished

to find out who she was. Then he, too, went away, and she turned to Miss

Laura. "Shall I help you, my dear?"

 

"If you please," said my young mistress. "I can't fasten this strap."

 

In a few seconds the bundle was done up, and we were joyfully hastening

to the train. It was only a few miles to Riverdale, so the conductor let

me stay in the car with Miss Laura. She spread her coat out on the seat

in front of her, and I sat on it and looked out of the car window as we

sped along through a lovely country, all green and fresh in the June

sunlight. How light and pleasant this car was--so different from the

baggage car. What frightens an animal most of all things, is not to see

where it is going, not to know what is going to happen to it. I think

that they are very like human beings in this respect.

 

The lady had taken a seat beside Miss Laura, and as we went along, she

too looked out of the window and said in a low voice:

 

"What is so rare as a day in June,

Then, if ever, come perfect days."

 

"That is very true," said Miss Laura; "how sad that the autumn must

come, and the cold winter."

 

"No, my dear, not sad. It is but a preparation for another summer."

 

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Miss Laura. Then she continued a little

shyly, as her companion leaned over to stroke my cropped ears "You seem

very fond of animals."

 

"I am, my dear. I have four horses, two cows, a tame squirrel, three

dogs, and a cat."

 

"You should be a happy woman," said Miss Laura, with a smile.

 

"I think I am. I must not forget my horned toad, Diego, that I got in

California. I keep him in the green-house, and he is very happy catching

flies and holding his horny head to be scratched whenever any one comes

near."

 

"I don't see how any one can be unkind to animals," said Miss Laura,

thoughtfully.

 

"Nor I, my dear child. It has always caused me intense pain to witness

the torture of dumb animals. Nearly seventy years ago, when I was a

little girl walking the streets of Boston, I would tremble and grow

faint at the cruelty of drivers to over-loaded horses. I was timid and

did not dare speak to them. Very often, I ran home and flung myself in

my mother's arms with a burst of tears, and asked her if nothing could

be done to help the poor animals. With mistaken, motherly kindness, she

tried to put the subject out of my thoughts. I was carefully guarded

from seeing or hearing of any instances of cruelty. But the animals went

on suffering just the same, and when I became a woman, I saw my

cowardice. I agitated the matter among my friends, and told them that

our whole dumb creation was groaning together in pain, and would

continue to groan, unless merciful human beings were willing to help

them. I was able to assist in the formation of several societies for the

prevention of cruelty to animals, and they have done good service. Good

service not only to the horses and cows, but to the nobler animal, man.

I believe that in saying to a cruel man, 'You shall not overwork,

torture, mutilate, nor kill your animal, or neglect to provide it with

proper food and shelter,' we are making him a little nearer the kingdom

of heaven than he was before. For 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall

he also reap.' If he sows seeds of unkindness and cruelty to man and

beast, no one knows what the blackness of the harvest will be. His poor

horse, quivering under a blow, is not the worst sufferer. Oh, if people

would only understand that their unkind deeds will recoil upon their own

heads with tenfold force--but, my dear child, I am fancying that I am

addressing a drawing-room meeting--and here we are at your station.

Good-bye; keep your happy face and gentle ways. I hope that we may meet

again some day." She pressed Miss Laura's hand, gave me a farewell pat,

and the next minute we were outside on the platform, and she was smiling

through the window at us.

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER XVI (DINGLEY FARM)

"My dear niece," and a stout, middle-aged woman, with a red, lively

face, threw both her arms around Miss Laura, "How glad I am to see you,

and this is the dog. Good Joe, I have a bone waiting for you. Here is

Uncle John."

 

A tall, good-looking man stepped up and put out a big hand, in which my

mistress' little fingers were quite swallowed up. "I am glad to see you,

Laura. Well, Joe, how d'ye do, old boy? I've heard about you."

 

It made me feel very welcome to have them both notice me, and I was so

glad to be out of the train that I frisked for joy around their feet as

we went to the wagon. It was a big double one, with an awning over it to

shelter it from the sun's rays, and the horses were drawn up in the

shade of a spreading tree. They were two powerful black horses, and as

they had no blinders on, they could see us coming. Their faces lighted

up and they moved their ears and pawed the ground, and whinnied when Mr.

Wood went up to them. They tried to rub their heads against him, and I

saw plainly that they loved him. "Steady there, Cleve and Pacer," he

said; "now back, back up."

 

By this time, Mrs. Wood, Miss Laura and I were in the wagon. Then Mr.

Wood jumped in, took up the reins, and off we went. How the two black

horses did spin along! I sat on the seat beside Mr. Wood, and sniffed in

the delicious air, and the lovely smell of flowers and grass. How glad I

was to be in the country! What long races I should have in the green

fields. I wished that I had another dog to run with me, and wondered

very much whether Mr. Wood kept one. I knew I should soon find out, for

whenever Miss Laura went to a place she wanted to know what animals

there were about.

 

We drove a little more than a mile along a country road where there were

scattered houses. Miss Laura answered questions about her family, and

asked questions about Mr. Harry, who was away at college and hadn't got

home. I don't think I have said before that Mr. Harry was Mrs. Wood's

son. She was a widow with one son when she married Mr. Wood, so that Mr.

Harry, though the Morrises called him cousin, was not really their

cousin.

 

I was very glad to hear them say that he was soon coming home, for I had

never forgotten that but for him I should never have known Miss Laura

and gotten into my pleasant home.

 

By-and-by, I heard Miss Laura say: "Uncle John, have you a dog?"

 

"Yes, Laura," he said; "I have one to-day, but I sha'n't have one

to-morrow."

 

"Oh, uncle, what do you mean?" she asked.

 

"Well, Laura," he replied, "you know animals are pretty much like

people. There are some good ones and some bad ones. Now, this dog is a

snarling, cross-grained, cantankerous beast, and when I heard Joe was

coming, I said: 'Now we'll have a good dog about the place, and here's

an end to the bad one.' So I tied Bruno up, and to-morrow I shall shoot

him. Something's got to be done, or he'll be biting some one."

 

"Uncle," said Miss Laura, "people don't always die when they are bitten

by dogs, do they?"

 

"No, certainly not," replied Mr. Wood. "In my humble opinion there's a

great lot of nonsense talked about the poison of a dog's bite and people

dying of hydrophobia. Ever since I was born I've had dogs snap at me and

stick their teeth in my flesh; and I've never had a symptom of

hydrophobia, and never intend to have. I believe half the people that

are bitten by dogs frighten themselves into thinking they are fatally

poisoned. I was reading the other day about the policemen in a big city

in England that have to catch stray dogs, and dogs supposed to be mad,

and all kinds of dogs, and they get bitten over and over again, and

never think anything about it. But let a lady or a gentleman walking

along the street have a dog bite them, and they worry themselves till

their blood is in a fever, and they have to hurry across to France to

get Pasteur to cure them. They imagine they've got hydrophobia, and

they've got it because they imagine it. I believe if I fixed my

attention on that right thumb of mine, and thought I had a sore there,

and picked at it and worried it, in a short time a sore would come, and

I'd be off to the doctor to have it cured. At the same time dogs have no

business to bite, and I don't recommend any one to get bitten."

 

"But, uncle," said Miss Laura, "isn't there such a thing as

hydrophobia?"

 

"Oh, yes; I dare say there is. I believe that a careful examination of

the records of death reported in Boston from hydrophobia for the space

of thirty-two years, shows that two people actually died from it. Dogs

are like all other animals. They're liable to sickness, and they've got

to be watched. I think my horses would go mad if I starved them, or

over-fed them, or over-worked them, or let them stand in laziness, or

kept them dirty, or didn't give them water enough. They'd get some

disease, anyway. If a person owns an animal, let him take care of it,

and it's all right. If it shows signs of sickness, shut it up and watch

If the sickness is incurable, kill it. Here's a sure way to prevent

hydrophobia. Kill off all ownerless and vicious dogs. If you can't do

that, have plenty of water where they can get at it. A dog that has all

the water he wants, will never go mad. This dog of mine has not one

single thing the matter with him but pure ugliness. Yet, if I let him

loose, and he ran through the village with his tongue out, I'll warrant

you there'd be a cry of 'mad dog!' However, I'm going to kill him. I've

no use for a bad dog. Have plenty of animals, I say, and treat them

kindly, but if there's a vicious one among them, put it out of the way,

for it is a constant danger to man and beast. It's queer how ugly some

people are about their dogs. They'll