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

has some lovable qualities. I

have just been reading about some sewer rats, Louise Michel's rats----"

 

"Who is she?" asked Miss Laura.

 

"A celebrated Frenchwoman, my dear child, 'the priestess of pity and

vengeance,' Mr. Stead calls her. You are too young to know about her,

but I remember reading of her in 1872, during the Commune troubles in

France. She is an anarchist, and she used to wear a uniform, and

shoulder a rifle, and help to build barricades. She was arrested and

sent as a convict to one of the French penal colonies. She has a most

wonderful love for animals in her heart, and when she went home she took

four cats with her. She was put into prison again in France and took the

cats with her. Rats came about her cell and she petted them and taught

her cats to be kind to them. Before she got the cats thoroughly drilled

one of them bit a rat's paw. Louise nursed the rat till it got well,

then let it down by a string from her window. It went back to its sewer,

and, I suppose, told the other rats how kind Louise had been to it, for

after that they came to her cell without fear. Mother rats brought their

young ones and placed them at her feet, as if to ask her protection for

them. The most remarkable thing about them was their affection for each

other. Young rats would chew the crusts thrown to old toothless rats, so

that they might more easily eat them, and if a young rat dared help

itself before an old one, the others punished it."

 

"That sounds very interesting, auntie," said Miss Laura. "Where did you

read it?"

 

"I have just got the magazine," said Mrs. Wood; "you shall have it as

soon as you come into the house."

 

"I love to be with you, dear auntie," said Miss Laura, putting her arm

affectionately around her, as they stood in the doorway; "because you

understand me when I talk about animals. I can't explain it," went on my

dear young mistress, laying her hand on her heart, "the feeling I have

here for them. I just love a dumb creature, and I want to stop and talk

to every one I see. Sometimes I worry poor Bessie Drury, and I'm so

sorry, but I can't help it. She says, 'What makes you so silly, Laura?'"

 

Miss Laura was standing just where the sunlight shone through her

light-brown hair, and made her face all in a glow. I thought she looked

more beautiful than I had ever seen her before, and I think Mrs. Wood

thought the same. She turned around and put both hands on Miss Laura's

shoulders. "Laura," she said, earnestly, "there are enough cold hearts

in the world. Don't you ever stifle a warm or tender feeling toward a

dumb creature. That is your chief attraction, my child: your love for

everything that breathes and moves. Tear out the selfishness from your

heart, if there is any there, but let the love and pity stay. And now

let me talk a little more to you about the cows. I want to interest you

in dairy matters. This stable is new since you were here, and we've made

a number of improvements. Do you see those bits of rock salt in each

stall? They are for the cows to lick whenever they want to. Now, come

here, and I'll show you what we call 'The Black Hole.'"

 

It was a tiny stable off the main one, and it was very dark and cool.

"Is this a place of punishment?" asked Miss Laura, in surprise.

 

Mrs. Wood laughed heartily. "No, no; a place of pleasure. Sometimes when

the flies are very bad and the cows are brought into the yard to be

milked and a fresh swarm settles on them, they are nearly frantic; and

though they are the best cows in New Hampshire, they will kick a little.

 

"When they do, those that are the worst are brought in here to be milked

where there are no flies. The others have big strips of cotton laid over

their backs and tied under them, and the men brush their legs with tansy

tea, or water with a little carbolic acid in it. That keeps the flies

away, and the cows know just as well that it is done for their comfort,

and stand quietly till the milking is over. I must ask John to have

their nightdresses put on sometimes for you to see. Harry calls them

'sheeted ghosts,' and they do look queer enough standing all round the

barnyard robed in white."

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER XXXI (IN THE COW STABLE)

 

"Isn't it a strange thing," said Miss Laura, "that a little thing like a

fly, can cause so much annoyance to animals as well as to people?

Sometimes when I am trying to get more sleep in the morning, their

little feet tickle me so that I am nearly frantic and have to fly out of

bed."

 

"You shall have some netting to put over your bed," said Mrs. Wood; "but

suppose, Laura, you had no hands to brush away the flies. Suppose your

whole body was covered with them, and you were tied up somewhere and

could not get loose. I can't imagine more exquisite torture myself. Last

summer the flies here were dreadful. It seems to me that they are

getting worse and worse every year, and worry the animals more. I

believe it is because the birds are getting thinned out all over the

country. There are not enough of them to catch the flies. John says that

the next improvements we make on the farm are to be wire gauze at all

the stable windows and screen doors to keep the little pests from the

horses and cattle.

 

"One afternoon last summer, Mr. Maxwell's mother came for me to go for a

drive with her. The heat was intense, and when we got down by the river,

she proposed getting out of the phaeton and sitting under the trees, to

see if it would be any cooler. She was driving a horse that she had got

from the hotel in the village, a roan horse that was clipped, and

check-reined, and had his tail docked. I wouldn't drive behind a

tailless horse now. Then, I wasn't so particular. However, I made her

unfasten the check-rein before I'd set foot in the carriage. Well, I

thought that horse would go mad. He'd tremble and shiver, and look so

pitifully at us. The flies were nearly eating him up. Then he'd start a

little. Mrs. Maxwell had a weight at his head to hold him, but he could

easily have dragged that. He was a good dispositioned horse, and he

didn't want to run away, but he could not stand still. I soon jumped up

and slapped him, and rubbed him till my hands were dripping wet. The

poor brute was so grateful and would keep touching my arm with his nose.

Mrs. Maxwell sat under the trees fanning herself and laughing at me, but

I didn't care. How could I enjoy myself with a dumb creature writhing in

pain before me?

 

"A docked horse can neither eat nor sleep comfortably in the fly season.

In one of our New England villages they have a sign up, 'Horses taken in

to grass. Long tails, one dollar and fifty cents. Short tails, one

dollar.' And it just means that the short-tailed ones are taken cheaper,

because they are so bothered by the flies that they can't eat much,

while the long-tailed ones are able to brush them away, and eat in

peace. I read the other day of a Buffalo coal dealer's horse that was in

such an agony through flies, that he committed suicide. You know animals

will do that. I've read of horses and dogs drowning themselves. This

horse had been clipped, and his tail was docked, and he was turned out

to graze. The flies stung him till he was nearly crazy. He ran up to a

picket fence, and sprang up on the sharp spikes. There he hung, making

no effort to get down. Some men saw him, and they said it was a clear

case of suicide.

 

"I would like to have the power to take every man who cuts off a horse's

tail, and tie his hands and turn him out in a field in the hot sun, with

little clothing on, and plenty of flies about. Then we would see if he

wouldn't sympathize with the poor, dumb beast. It's the most senseless

thing in the world, this docking fashion. They've a few flimsy arguments

about a horse with a docked tail being stronger-backed, like a

short-tailed sheep, but I don't believe a word of it. The horse was made

strong enough to do the work he's got to do, and man can't improve on

him. Docking is a cruel, wicked thing. Now, there's a ghost of an

argument in favor of check-reins, on certain occasions. A fiery, young

horse can't run away, with an overdrawn check, and in speeding horses a

tight check-rein will make them hold their heads up, and keep them from

choking.

 

"But I don't believe in raising colts in a way to make them fiery, and I

wish there wasn't a race horse on the face of the earth, so if it

depended on me, every kind of check-rein would go. It's a pity we women

can't vote, Laura. We'd do away with a good many abuses."

 

Miss Laura smiled, but it was a very faint, almost an unhappy smile, and

Mrs. Wood said hastily, "Let us talk about something else. Did you ever

hear that cows will give less milk on a dark day than on a bright one?"

 

"No; I never did," said Miss Laura.

 

"Well, they do. They are most sensitive animals. One finds out all

manners of curious things about animals if he makes a study of them.

Cows are wonderful creatures, I think, and so grateful for good usage

that they return every scrap of care given them, with interest. Have you

ever heard anything about dehorning, Laura?"

 

"Not much, auntie. Does uncle approve of it?"

 

"No, indeed. He'd just as soon think of cutting their tails off, as of

dehorning them. He says he guesses the Creator knew how to make a cow

better than he does. Sometimes I tell John that his argument doesn't

hold good, for a man in some ways can improve on nature. In the natural

course of things, a cow would be feeding her calf for half a year, but

we take it away from her, and raise it as well as she could and get an

extra quantity of milk from her in addition. I don't know what to think

myself about dehorning. Mr. Windham's cattle are all polled, and he has

an open space in his barn for them, instead of keeping them in stalls,

and he says they're more comfortable and not so confined. I suppose in

sending cattle to sea, it's necessary to take their horns off, but when

they're going to be turned out to grass, it seems like mutilating them.

Our cows couldn't keep the dogs away from the sheep if they didn't have

their horns. Their horns are their means of defense."

 

"Do your cattle stand in these stalls all winter?" asked Miss Laura.

 

"Oh, yes, except when they're turned out in the barnyard, and then John

usually has to send a man to keep them moving or they'd take cold.

Sometimes on very fine days they get out all day. You know cows aren't

like horses. John says they're like great milk machines. You've got to

keep them quiet, only exercising enough to keep them in health. If a cow

is hurried or worried, or chilled or heated, it stops her milk yield.

And bad usage poisons it. John says you can't take a stick and strike a

cow across the back, without her milk being