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

they all had their own place to get a drink.

 

Even I had a little bowl of water in the woodshed, though I could easily

have run up to the barnyard when I wanted a drink. As soon as I came,

Mrs. Wood asked Adele to keep it there for me and when I looked up

gratefully at her, she said: "Every animal should have its own feeding

place and its own sleeping place, Joe; that is only fair."

 

The next horses Mr. Wood groomed were the black ones, Cleve and Pacer.

Pacer had something wrong with his mouth, and Mr. Wood turned back his

lips and examined it carefully. This he was able to do, for there were

large windows in the stable and it was as light as Mr. Wood's house was.

 

"No dark corners here, eh Joe!" said Mr. Wood, as he came out of the

stall and passed me to get a bottle from a shelf. "When this stable was

built, I said no dirt holes for careless men here. I want the sun to

shine in the corners, and I don't want my horses to smell bad smells,

for they hate them, and I don't want them starting when they go into the

light of day, just because they've been kept in a black hole of a

stable, and I've never had a sick horse yet."

 

He poured something from a bottle into a saucer and went back to Pacer

with it. I followed him and stood outside. Mr. Wood seemed to be washing

a sore in the horse's mouth. Pacer winced a little, and Mr. Wood said:

"Steady, steady, my beauty; 'twill soon be over."

 

The horse fixed his intelligent eyes on his master and looked as if he

knew that he was trying to do him good.

 

"Just look at these lips, Joe," said Mr. Wood; "delicate and fine like

our own, and yet there are brutes that will jerk them as if they were

made of iron. I wish the Lord would give horses voices just for one

week. I tell you they'd scare some of us. Now, Pacer, that's over. I'm

not going to dose you much, for I don't believe in it. If a horse has

got a serious trouble, get a good horse doctor, say I. If it's a simple

thing, try a simple remedy. There's been many a good horse drugged and

dosed to death. Well, Scamp, my beauty, how are you, this morning?"

 

In the stall next to Pacer, was a small, jet-black mare, with a lean

head, slender legs, and a curious restless manner. She was a regular

greyhound of a horse, no spare flesh, yet wiry and able to do a great

deal of work. She was a wicked looking little thing, so I thought I had

better keep at a safe distance from her heels.

 

Mr. Wood petted her a great deal and I saw that she was his favorite.

"Saucebox," he exclaimed, when she pretended to bite him, "you know if

you bite me, I'll bite back again. I think I've conquered you," he said,

proudly, as he stroked her glossy neck; "but what a dance you led me. Do

you remember how I bought you for a mere song, because you had a bad

habit of turning around like a flash in front of anything that

frightened you, and bolting off the other way? And how did I cure you,

my beauty? Beat you and make you stubborn? Not I. I let you go round and

round; I turned you and twisted you, the oftener the better for me, till

at last I got it into your pretty head that turning and twisting was

addling your brains, and you had better let me be master.

 

"You've minded me from that day, haven't you? Horse, or man, or dog

aren't much good till they learn to obey, and I've thrown you down and

I'll do it again if you bite me, so take care."

 

Scamp tossed her pretty head, and took little pieces of Mr. Wood's shirt

sleeve in her mouth, keeping her cunning brown eye on him as if to see

how far she could go. But she did not bite him. I think she loved him,

for when he left her she whinnied shrilly, and he had to go back and

stroke and caress her.

 

After that I often used to watch her as she went about the farm. She

always seemed to be tugging and striving at her load, and trying to step

out fast and do a great deal of work. Mr. Wood was usually driving her.

The men didn't like her, and couldn't manage her. She had not been

properly broken in.

 

After Mr. Wood finished his work he went and stood in the doorway. There

were six horses altogether: Dutchman, Cleve, Pacer, Scamp, a bay mare

called Ruby, and a young horse belonging to Mr. Harry, whose name was

Fleetfoot.

 

"What do you think of them all?" said Mr. Wood, looking down at me. "A

pretty fine-looking lot of horses, aren't they? Not a thoroughbred

there, but worth as much to me as if each had pedigree as long as this

plank walk. There's a lot of humbug about this pedigree business in

horses. Mine have their manes and tails anyway, and the proper use of

their eyes, which is more liberty than some thoroughbreds get.

 

"I'd like to see the man that would persuade me to put blinders or

check-reins or any other instrument of torture on my horses. Don't the

simpletons know that blinders are the cause of--well, I wouldn't like to

say how many of our accidents, Joe, for fear you'd think me extravagant

and the check-rein drags up a horse's head out of its fine natural curve

and presses sinews, bones, and joints together, till the horse is

well-nigh mad. Ah, Joe, this is a cruel world for man or beast. You're a

standing token of that, with your missing ears and tail. And now I've

got to go and be cruel, and shoot that dog. He must be disposed of

before anyone else is astir. How I hate to take life."

 

He sauntered down the walk to the tool shed, went in and soon came out

leading a large, brown dog by a chain. This was Bruno. He was snapping

and snarling and biting at his chain as he went along, though Mr. Wood

led him very kindly, and when he saw me he acted as if he could have

torn me to pieces. After Mr. Wood took him behind the barn, he came back

and got his gun. I ran away so that I would not hear the sound of it,

for I could not help feeling sorry for Bruno.

 

Miss Laura's room was on one side of the house, and in the second story.

There was a little balcony outside it, and when I got near I saw that

she was standing out on it wrapped in a shawl. Her hair was streaming

over her shoulders, and she was looking down into the garden where there

were a great many white and yellow flowers in bloom.

 

I barked, and she looked at me. "Dear old Joe, I will get dressed and

come down."

 

She hurried into her room, and I lay on the veranda till I heard her

step. Then I jumped up. She unlocked the front door, and we went for a

walk down the lane to the road until we heard the breakfast bell. As

soon as we heard it we ran back to the house, and Miss Laura had such an

appetite for her breakfast that her aunt said the country had done her

good already.

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

CHAPTER XVIII (MRS. WOOD'S POULTRY)

After breakfast, Mrs. Wood put on a large apron, and going into the

kitchen, said: "Have you any scraps for the hens, Adele? Be sure and not

give me anything salty."

 

The French girl gave her a dish of food, then Mrs. Wood asked Miss Laura

to go and see her chickens, and away we went to the poultry house.

 

On the way we saw Mr. Wood. He was sitting on the step of the tool shed

cleaning his gun. "Is the dog dead?" asked Miss Laura.

 

"Yes," he said.

 

She sighed and said: "Poor creature, I am sorry he had to be killed.

Uncle, what is the most merciful way to kill a dog? Sometimes, when they

get old, they should be put out of the way."

 

"You can shoot them," he said, "or you can poison them. I shot Bruno

through his head into his neck. There's a right place to aim at. It's a

little one side of the top of the skull. If you'll remind me I'll show

you a circular I have in the house. It tells the proper way to kill

animals: The American Humane Education Society in Boston puts it out,

and it's a merciful thing.

 

"You don't know anything about the slaughtering of animals, Laura, and

it's well you don't. There's an awful amount of cruelty practised, and

practised by some people that think themselves pretty good. I wouldn't

have my lambs killed the way my father had his for a kingdom. I'll never

forget the first one I saw butchered. I wouldn't feel worse at a hanging

now. And that white ox, Hattie--you remember my telling you about him.

He had to be killed, and father sent for the butcher, I was only a lad,

and I was all of a shudder to have the life of the creature I had known

taken from him. The butcher, stupid clown, gave him eight blows before

he struck the right place. The ox bellowed, and turned his great black

eyes on my father, and I fell in a faint."

 

Miss Laura turned away, and Mrs. Wood followed her, saying: "If ever you

want to kill a cat, Laura, give it cyanide of potassium. I killed a poor

old sick cat for Mrs. Windham the other day. We put half a teaspoonful

of pure cyanide of potassium in a long-handled wooden spoon, and dropped

it on the cat's tongue, as near the throat as we could. Poor pussy--she

died in a few seconds. Do you know, I was reading such a funny thing the

other day about giving cats medicine. They hate it, and one can scarcely

force it into their mouths on account of their sharp teeth. The way is,

to smear it on their sides, and they lick it off. A good idea, isn't it?

Here we are at the hen house, or rather one of the hen houses."

 

"Don't you keep your hens all together?" asked Miss Laura.

 

"Only in the winter time," said Mrs. Wood. "I divide my flock in the

spring. Part of them stay here and part go to the orchard to live in

little movable houses that we put about in different places. I feed each

flock morning and evening at their own little house. They know they'll

get no food even if they come to my house, so they stay at home. And

they know they'll get no food between times, so all day long they pick

and scratch in the orchard, and destroy so many bugs and insects that it

more than pays for the trouble of keeping them there."

 

"Doesn't this flock want to mix up with the other?" asked Miss Laura, as

she stepped into the little wooden house.

 

"No; they seem to understand. I keep my eye on them for a while at

first, and they soon find out that they're not to fly either over the

garden fence or the orchard fence. They roam over the farm and pick up

what they can get. There's a good deal of sense in hens, if one manages

them properly. I love them because they are such good mothers."

 

We were in the little wooden house by this time, and I looked around it

with surprise. It was better than some of the poor people's houses