Beautiful Joe (20 page)

“Yes,
uncle,” said Miss Laura.

“That lamb
by her side is not her own. Hers died and we took its fleece and wrapped it
around a twin lamb that we took from another ewe, and gave to her. She soon
adopted it. Now, come this way, and I’ll show you our movable feeding troughs.”

He got up
from the log, and Miss Laura followed him to the fence. “These big troughs are
for the sheep,” said Mr. Wood, “and these shallow ones in the enclosure are for
the lambs. See, there is just room enough for them to get under the fence. You
should see the small creatures rush to them whenever we appear with their oats,
and wheat, or bran, or whatever we are going to give them. If they are going to
the butcher, they get corn meal and oil meal. Whatever it is, they eat it up
clean. I don’t believe in cramming animals. I feed them as much as is good for
them, and not any more. Now, you go sit down over there behind those bushes with
Joe, and I’ll attend to business.”

Miss Laura
found a shady place, and I curled myself up beside her. We sat there a long
time, but we did not get tired, for it was amusing to watch the sheep and
lambs. After a while, Mr. Wood came and sat down beside us. He talked some more
about sheep-raising; then he said, “You may stay here longer if you like, but I
must get down to the house. The work must be done, if the weather is hot.”

“What are
you going to do now?” asked Miss Laura, jumping up.

“Oh! more
sheep business. I’ve set out some young trees in the orchard, and unless I get
chicken wire around them, my sheep will be barking them for me.”

“I’ve seen
them,” said Miss Laura, “standing up on their hind legs and nibbling at the
trees, taking off every shoot they can reach.”

“They don’t
hurt the old trees,” said Mr. Wood; “but the young ones have to be protected.
It pays me to take care of my fruit trees, for I get a splendid crop from them,
thanks to the sheep.”

“Good-bye,
little lambs and dear old sheep,” said Miss Laura, as her uncle opened the gate
for her to leave the pasture. “I’ll come and see you again some time. Now, you
had better go down to the brook in the dingle and have a drink. You look hot in
your warm coats.”

“You’ve
mastered one detail of sheep-keeping,” said Mr. Wood, as he slowly walked along
beside his niece. “To raise healthy sheep one must have pure water where they
can get to it whenever they like. Give them good water, good food, and a variety
of it, good quarters cool in summer, comfortable in winter, and keep them
quiet, and you’ll make them happy and make money on them.”

“I think I’d
like sheep-raising,” said Miss Laura; “won’t you have me for your flock
mistress, uncle?”

He
laughed, and said he thought not, for she would cry every time any of her
charge were sent to the butcher.

After this
Miss Laura and I often went up to 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.

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 anyone 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 colour.

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 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 everyone 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 sending all round the barnyard robed in white.”