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

the pasture to see the

sheep and the lambs. We used to get into a shady place where they could

not see us, and watch them. One day I got a great surprise about the

sheep. I had heard so much about their meekness that I never dreamed

that they would fight; but it turned out that they did, and they went

about it in such a business-like way, that I could not help smiling at

them. I suppose that like most other animals they had a spice of

wickedness in them. On this day a quarrel arose between two sheep; but

instead of running at each other like two dogs they went a long distance

apart, and then came rushing at each other with lowered heads. Their

object seemed to be to break each other's skull; but Miss Laura soon

stopped them by calling out and frightening them apart. I thought that

the lambs were more interesting than the sheep. Sometimes they fed

quietly by their mothers' sides, and at other times they all huddled

together on the top of some flat rock or in a bare place, and seemed to

be talking to each other with their heads close together. Suddenly one

would jump down, and start for the bushes or the other side of the

pasture. They would all follow pell-mell; then in a few minutes they

would come rushing back again. It was pretty to see them playing

together and having a good time before the sorrowful day of their death

came.

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

CHAPTER XXX (A JEALOUS OX)

Mr. Wood had a dozen calves that he was raising, and Miss Laura

sometimes went up to the stable to see them. Each calf was in a crib,

and it was fed with milk. They had gentle, patient faces, and beautiful

eyes, and looked very meek, as they stood quietly gazing about them, or

sucking away at their milk. They reminded me of big, gentle dogs.

 

I never got a very good look at them in their cribs, but one day when

they were old enough to be let out, I went up with Miss Laura to the

yard where they were kept. Such queer, ungainly, large-boned creatures

they were, and such a good time they were having, running and jumping

and throwing up their heels.

 

Mrs. Wood was with us, and she said that it was not good for calves to

be closely penned after they got to be a few weeks old. They were better

for getting out and having a frolic. She stood beside Miss Laura for a

long time, watching the calves, and laughing a great deal at their

awkward gambols. They wanted to play, but they did not seem to know how

to use their limbs.

 

They were lean calves, and Miss Laura asked her aunt why all the nice

milk they had taken had not made them fat. "The fat will come all in

good time," said Mrs. Wood. "A fat calf makes a poor cow, and a fat,

small calf isn't profitable to fit for sending to the butcher. It's

better to have a bony one and fatten it. If you come here next summer,

you'll see a fine show of young cattle, with fat sides, and big, open

horns, and a good coat of hair. Can you imagine," she went on,

indignantly, "that any one could be cruel enough to torture such a

harmless creature as a calf?"

 

"No, indeed," replied Miss Laura. "Who has been doing it?"

 

"Who has been doing it?" repeated Mrs. Wood, bitterly; "they are doing

it all the time. Do you know what makes the nice, white veal one gets in

big cities? The calves are bled to death. They linger for hours, and

moan their lives away. The first time I heard it, I was so angry that I

cried for a day, and made John promise that he'd never send another

animal of his to a big city to be killed. That's why all of our stock

goes to Hoytville, and small country places. Oh, those big cities are

awful places, Laura. It seems to me that it makes people wicked to

huddle them together. I'd rather live in a desert than a city. There's

Ch--o. Every night since I've been there I pray to the Lord either to

change the hearts of some of the wicked people in it, or to destroy them

off the face of the earth. You know three years ago I got run down, and

your uncle said I'd got to have a change, so he sent me off to my

brother's in Ch--o. I stayed and enjoyed myself pretty well, for it is a

wonderful city, till one day some Western men came in, who had been

visiting the slaughter houses outside the city. I sat and listened to

their talk, and it seemed to me that I was hearing the description of a

great battle. These men were cattle dealers, and had been sending stock

to Ch--o, and they were furious that men, in their rage for wealth,

would so utterly ignore and trample on all decent and humane feelings as

to torture animals as the Ch--o men were doing.

 

"It is too dreadful to repeat the sights they saw. I listened till they

were describing Texan steers kicking in agony under the torture that was

practised, and then I gave a loud scream, and fainted dead away. They

had to send for your uncle, and he brought me home, and for days and

days I heard nothing but shouting and swearing, and saw animals dripping

with blood, and crying and moaning in their anguish, and now, Laura, if

you'd lay down a bit of Ch------o meat, and cover it with gold, I'd

spurn it from me. But what am I saying? you're as white as a sheet. Come

and see the cow stable. John's just had it whitewashed."

 

Miss Laura took her aunt's arm, and I walked slowly behind them. The cow

stable was a long building, well-built, and with no chinks in the walls,

as Jenkins's stable had. There were large windows where the afternoon

sun came streaming in, and a number of ventilators, and a great many

stalls. A pipe of water ran through the stalls from one end of the

stable to the other. The floor was covered with sawdust and leaves, and

the ceiling and tops of the walls were whitewashed. Mrs. Wood said that

her husband would not have the walls a glare of white right down to the

floor, because he thought it injured the animals' eyes. So the lower

parts of the walls were stained a dark, brown color.

 

There were doors at each end of the stable, and just now they stood

open, and a gentle breeze was blowing through, but Mrs. Wood said that

when the cattle stood in the stalls, both doors were never allowed to be

open at the same time. Mr. Wood was most particular to have no drafts

blowing upon his cattle. He would not have them chilled, and he would

not have them overheated. One thing was as bad as the other. And during

the winter they were never allowed to drink icy water. He took the chill

off the water for his cows, just as Mrs. Wood did for her hens.

 

"You know, Laura," Mrs. Wood went on, "that when cows are kept dry and

warm, they eat less than when they are cold and wet. They are so

warm-blooded that if they are cold, they have to eat a great deal to

keep up the heat of their bodies, so it pays better to house and feed

them well. They like quiet, too. I never knew that till I married your

uncle. On our farm, the boys always shouted and screamed at the cows

when they were driving them, and sometimes they made them run. They're

never allowed to do that here."

 

"I have noticed how quiet this farm seems," said Miss Laura. "You have

so many men about, and yet there is so little noise."

 

"Your uncle whistles a great deal," said Mrs. Wood. "Have you noticed

that? He whistles when he's about his work, and then he has a calling

whistle that nearly all of the animals know, and the men run when they

hear it. You'd see every cow in this stable turn its head, if he

whistled in a certain way outside. He says that he got into the way of

doing it when he was a boy and went for his father's cows. He trained

them so that he'd just stand in the pasture and whistle, and they'd come

to him. I believe the first thing that inclined me to him was his clear,

happy whistle. I'd hear him from our house away down on the road,

jogging along with his cart, or driving in his buggy. He says there is

no need of screaming at any animal. It only frightens and angers them.

They will mind much better if you speak clearly and distinctly. He says

there is only one thing an animal hates more than to be shouted at, and

that's to be crept on--to have a person sneak up to it and startle it.

John says many a man is kicked, because he comes up to his horse like a

thief. A startled animal's first instinct is to defend itself. A dog

will spring at you, and a horse will let his heels fly. John always

speaks or whistles to let the stock know when he's approaching."

 

"Where is uncle this afternoon?" asked Miss Laura.

 

"Oh, up to his eyes in hay. He's even got one of the oxen harnessed to a

hay cart."

 

"I wonder whether it's Duke?" said Miss Laura.

 

"Yes, it is. I saw the star on his forehead," replied Mrs. Wood.

 

"I don't know when I have laughed at anything as much as I did at him

the other day," said Miss Laura. "Uncle asked me if I had ever heard of

such a thing as a jealous ox, and I said no. He said, 'Come to the

barnyard, and I'll show you one.' The oxen were both there, Duke with

his broad face, and Bright so much sharper and more intelligent looking.

Duke was drinking at the trough there, and uncle said: 'Just look at

him. Isn't he a great, fat, self-satisfied creature, and doesn't he look

as if he thought the world owed him a living, and he ought to get it?'

Then he got the card and went up to Bright, and began scratching him.

Duke lifted his head from the trough, and stared at uncle, who paid no

attention to him but went on carding Bright, and stroking and petting

him. Duke looked so angry. He left the trough, and with the water

dripping from his lips, went up to uncle, and gave him a push with his

horns. Still uncle took no notice, and Duke almost pushed him over. Then

uncle left off petting Bright, and turned to him. He said Duke would

have treated him roughly, if he hadn't. I never saw a creature look as

satisfied as Duke did, when uncle began to card him. Bright didn't seem

to care, and only gazed calmly at them."

 

"I've seen Duke do that again and again," said Mrs. Wood. "He's the most

jealous animal that we have, and it makes him perfectly miserable to

have your uncle pay attention to any animal but him. What queer

creatures these dumb brutes are. They're pretty much like us in most

ways. They're jealous and resentful, and they can love or hate equally

well--and forgive, too, for that matter; and suffer--how they can

suffer, and so patiently, too. Where is the human being that would put

up with the tortures that animals endure and yet come out so patient?"

 

"Nowhere," said Miss Laura, in a low voice; "we couldn't do it."

 

"And there doesn't seem to be an animal," Mrs. Wood went on, "no matter

how ugly and repulsive it is, but what