Beautiful Joe Part 15

"I do not think we are a wicked nation," she said, softly. "We are a younger nation than many of the nations of the earth, and I think that many of our sins arise from ignorance and thoughtlessness."

"Yes, madame, yes, madame," said the fiery old gentleman, staring hard at her. "I agree with you there."

She smiled very pleasantly at him and went on. "I, too, have been a traveler, and I have talked to a great many wise and good people on the subject of the cruel treatment of animals, and I find that many of them have never thought about it. They, themselves, never knowingly ill-treat a dumb creature, and when they are told stories of inhuman conduct, they say in surprise, 'Why, these things surely can't exist!' You see they have never been brought in contact with them. As soon as they learn about them, they begin to agitate and say, 'We must have this thing stopped. Where is the remedy?'"

"And what is it, what is it, madame, in your opinion?" said the old gentleman, pawing the floor with impatience.

"Just the remedy that I would propose for the great evil of intemperance," said the old lady, smiling at him. "Legislation and education. Legislation for the old and hardened, and education for the young and tender. I would tell the schoolboys and schoolgirls that alcohol will destroy the framework of their beautiful bodies, and that cruelty to any of G.o.d's living creatures will blight and destroy their innocent young souls."

The young man spoke again. "Don't you think," he said, "that you temperance and humane people lay too much stress upon the education of our youth in all lofty and n.o.ble sentiments? The human heart will always be wicked. Your Bible tells you that, doesn't it? You can't educate all the badness out of children."

"We don't expect to do that," said the old lady, turning her pleasant face toward him; "but even if the human heart is desperately wicked, shouldn't that make us much more eager to try to educate, to enn.o.ble, and restrain? However, as far as my experience goes, and I have lived in this wicked world for seventy-five years, I find that the human heart, though wicked and cruel, as you say, has yet some soft and tender spots, and the impressions made upon it in youth are 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 h.o.r.n.y 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 a.s.sist 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 n.o.bler 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 gra.s.s. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 it. 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 keep them no matter how they worry other people, and even when they're s.n.a.t.c.hing the bread out of their neighbors' mouths. But I say that is not the fault of the four-legged dog. A human dog is the worst of all. There's a band of sheep-killing dogs here in Riverdale, that their owners can't, or won't, keep out of mischief. Meek-looking fellows some of them are. The owners go to bed at night, and the dogs pretend to go, too; but when the house is quiet and the family asleep, off goes Rover or Fido to worry poor, defenseless creatures that can't defend themselves. Their taste for sheep's blood is like the taste for liquor in men, and the dogs will travel as far to get their fun, as the men will travel for theirs. They've got it in them, and you can't get it out.

"Mr. Windham cured his dog," said Mrs. Wood.

Mr. Wood burst into a hearty laugh. "So he did, so he did. I must tell Laura about that. Windham is a neighbor of ours, and last summer I kept telling him that his collie was worrying my Shrops.h.i.+res. He wouldn't believe me, but I knew I was right, and one night when Harry was home, he lay in wait for the dog and la.s.soed him. I tied him up and sent for Windham. You should have seen his face, and the dog's face. He said two words, 'You scoundrel!' and the dog cowered at his feet as if he had been shot. He was a fine dog, but he'd got corrupted by evil companions.

Then Windham asked me where my sheep were. I told him in the pasture. He asked me if I still had my old ram Bolton. I said yes, and then he wanted eight or ten feet of rope. I gave it to him, and wondered what on earth he was going to do with it. He tied one end of it to the dog's collar, and holding the other in his hand, set out for the pasture. He asked us to go with him, and when he got there, he told Harry he'd like to see him catch Bolton. There wasn't any need to catch him, he'd come to us like a dog. Harry whistled, and when Bolton came up, Windham fastened the rope's end to his horns, and let him go. The ram was frightened and ran, dragging the dog with him. We let them out of the pasture into an open field, and for a few minutes there was such a racing and chasing over that field as I never saw before. Harry leaned up against the bars and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, Then Bolton got mad, and began to make battle with the dog, pitching into him with his horns. We soon stopped that, for the spirit had all gone out of Dash. Windham unfastened the rope, and told him to get home, and if ever I saw a dog run, that one did. Mrs. Windham set great store by him, and her husband didn't want to kill him. But he said Dash had got to give up his sheep-killing, if he wanted to live. That cured him.

He's never worried a sheep from that day to this, and if you offer him a bit of sheep's wool now, he tucks his tail between his legs, and runs for home. Now, I must stop my talk, for we're in sight of the farm.

Yonder's our boundary line, and there's the house. You'll see a difference in the trees since you were here before."