Beautiful Joe (22 page)

We soon
settled down for the winter. Miss Laura began going to school, and came home
every day with a pile of books under her arm. The summer in the country had
done her so much good that her mother often looked at her fondly, and said the
white-faced child she sent away had come home a nut-brown maid.

A week or
two after we got home, I heard the Morris boys talking about an Italian who was
coming to Fairport with a troupe of trained animals, and I could see for myself
whenever I went to town, great flaming pictures on the fences, of monkeys
sitting at tables, dogs and ponies, and goats climbing ladders, and rolling
balls, and doing various tricks. I wondered very much whether they would be
able to do all those extraordinary things, but it turned out that they did.

The
Italian’s name was Bellini, and one afternoon the whole Morris family went to
see him and his animals, and when they came home, I heard them talking about
it.

“I wish
you could have been there, Joe,” said Jack, pulling up my paws to rest on his
knees. “Now listen, old fellow and I’ll tell you all about it. First of all,
there was a perfect jam in the town hall. I sat up in front, with a lot of
fellows, and had a splendid view. The old Italian came out dressed in his best
suit of clothes—black broadcloth, flower in his buttonhole, and so on. He made a
fine bow, and he said he was ‘pleased too see ze fine audience, and he was
going to show zem ze fine animals, ze finest animals in ze world.’ Then he
shook a little whip that he carried in his hand, and he said ‘zat zat whip didn’t
mean zat he was cruel. He cracked it to show his animals when to begin, end, or
change their tricks.

“Some boy
yelled, ‘Rats! you do whip them sometimes,’ and the old man made another bow, and
said, ‘Sairteenly, he whipped zem just as ze mammas whip ze naughty boys, to
make zem keep still when zey was noisy or stubborn.’

“Then
everybody laughed at the boy, and the Italian said the performance would begin
by a grand procession of all the animals, if some lady would kindly step up to
the piano and play a march. Nina Smith you know Nina, Joe, the girl that has
black eyes and wears blue ribbons, and lives around the corner stepped up to
the piano, and banged out a fine loud march. The doors at the side of the
platform opened, and out came the animals, two by two, just like Noah’s ark.
There was a pony with a monkey walking beside it and holding on to its mane,
another monkey on a pony’s back, two monkeys hand in hand, a dog with a parrot
on his back, a goat harnessed to a little carriage, another goat carrying a
birdcage in its mouth with two canaries inside, different kinds of cats, some doves
and pigeons, half a dozen white rats with red harness, and dragging a little
chariot with a monkey in it, and a common white gander that came in last of
all, and did nothing but follow one of the ponies about.

“The
Italian spoke of the gander, and said it was a stupid creature, and could learn
no tricks and he only kept it on account of its affection for the pony. He had
got them both on a Vermont farm, when he was looking for show animals. The pony’s
master had made a pet of him, and had taught him to come whenever he whistled
for him. Though the pony was only a scrub of a creature, he had a gentle
disposition, and every other animal on the farm liked him. A gander, in
particular, had such an admiration for him that he followed him wherever he
went, and if he lost him for an instant, he would mount one of the knolls on
the farm and stretch out his neck looking for him. When he caught sight of him,
he gabbled with delight, and running to him, waddled up and down beside him.
Every little while the pony put his nose down, and seemed to be having a
conversation with the goose. If the farmer whistled the pony and he started to
run to him, the gander, knowing he could not keep up, would seize the pony’s
tail in his beak, and flapping his wings, would get along as fast as the pony
did. And the pony never kicked him. The Italian saw that this pony would be a
good one to train for the stage, so he offered the farmer a large price for
him, and took him away.

“Oh, Joe,
I forgot to say, that by this time all the animals had been sent off the stage
except the pony and the gander, and they stood looking at the Italian while he
talked. I never saw anything as human in dumb animals as that pony’s face. He
looked as if he understood every word that his master was saying. After this
story was over, the Italian made another bow, and then told the pony to bow. He
nodded his head at the people, and they all laughed. Then the Italian asked him
to favor us with a waltz, and the pony got up on his hind legs and danced. You should
have seen that gander skirmishing around, so as to be near the pony and yet
keep out of the way of his heels. We fellows just roared, and we would have
kept him dancing all the afternoon if the Italian hadn’t begged ‘ze young
gentlemen not to make ze noise, but let ze pony do ze rest of his tricks.’ Pony
number two came on the stage, and it was too queer for anything to see the
things the two of them did. They helped the Italian on with his coat, they
pulled off his rubbers, they took his coat away and brought him a chair, and
dragged a table up to it. They brought him letters and papers, and rang bells,
and rolled barrels, and swung the Italian in a big swing, and jumped a rope,
and walked up and down steps they just went around that stage as handy with their
teeth as two boys would be with their hands, and they seemed to understand
every word their master said to them.

“The best
trick of all was telling the time and doing questions in arithmetic. The
Italian pulled his watch out of his pocket and showed it to the first pony,
whose name was Diamond, and said, ‘What time is it?’ The pony looked at it,
then scratched four times with his forefoot on the platform. The Italian said, ‘Zat’s
good—four o’clock. But it’s a few minutes after four—how many?’ The pony
scratched again five times. The Italian showed his watch to the audience, and
said that it was just five minutes past four. Then he asked the pony how old he
was. He scratched four times. That meant four years. He asked him how many days
in a week there were, how many months in a year; and he gave him some questions
in addition and subtraction, and the pony answered them all correctly. Of course,
the Italian was giving him some sign; but, though we watched him closely, we
couldn’t make out what it was.

“At last,
he told the pony that he had been very good, and had done his lessons well; if
it would rest him, he might be naughty a little while. All of a sudden a wicked
look came into the creature’s eyes. He turned around, and kicked up his heels
at his master, he pushed over the table and chairs, and knocked down a
blackboard where he had been rubbing out figures with a sponge held in his
mouth. The Italian pretended to be cross, and said, ‘Come, come; this won’t do,’
and he called the other pony to him, and told him to take that troublesome
fellow off the stage. The second one nosed Diamond, and pushed him about,
finally bit him by the ear, and led him squealing off the stage. The gander followed,
gabbling as fast as he could, and there was a regular roar of applause.

“After
that, there were ladders brought in, Joe, and dogs came on; not thoroughbreds,
but curs something like you. The Italian says he can’t teach tricks to pedigree
animals as well as to scrubs. Those dogs jumped the ladders, and climbed them,
and went through them, and did all kinds of things. The man cracked his whip
once, and they began; twice, and they did backward what they had done forward;
three times, and they stopped, and every animal, dogs, goats, ponies, and
monkeys, after they had finished their tricks, ran up to their master, and he
gave them a lump of sugar. They seemed fond of him, and often when they weren’t
performing went up to him, and licked his hands or his sleeve.
“There was one boss dog, Joe, with a head like yours. Bob, they called him, and
he did all his tricks alone. The Italian went off the stage, and the dog came
on and made his bow, and climbed his ladders, and jumped his hurdles, and went
off again. The audience howled for an encore, and didn’t he come out alone,
make another bow, and retire. I saw old Judge Brown wiping the tears from his
eyes, he’d laughed so much.

“One of
the last tricks was with a goat, and the Italian said it was the best of all,
because the goat is such a hard animal to teach. He had a big ball, and the
goat got on it and rolled it across the stage without getting off. He looked as
nervous as a cat, shaking his old beard, and trying to keep his four hoofs
close enough together to keep him on the ball.

“We had a
funny little play at the end of the performance. A monkey dressed as a lady in
a white satin suit and a bonnet with a white veil, came on the stage. She was
Miss Green and the dog Bob was going to elope with her. He was all rigged out
as Mr. Smith, and had on a light suit of clothes, and a tall hat on the side of
his head, high collar, long cuffs, and he carried a cane. He was a regular
dude. He stepped up to Miss Green on his hind legs, and helped her on to a pony’s
back. The pony galloped off the stage; then a crowd of monkeys, chattering and wringing
their hands, came on. Mr. Smith had run away with their child. They were all
dressed up, too. There were the father and mother, with gray wigs and black
clothes, and the young Greens in bibs and tuckers. They were a queer-looking
crowd.

“While
they were going on in this way, the pony trotted back on the stage; and they
all flew at him and pulled off their daughter from his back, and laughed and
chattered, and boxed her ears, and took off her white veil and her satin dress,
and put on an old brown thing, and some of them seized the dog, and kicked his
hat, and broke his cane, and stripped his clothes off, and threw them in a corner,
and bound his legs with cords. A goat came on, harnessed to a little cart and
they threw the dog in it, and wheeled him around the stage a few times. Then
they took him out and tied him to a hook in the wall, and the goat ran off the
stage, and the monkeys ran to one side, and one of them pulled out a little
revolver, pointed it at the dog, fired, and he dropped down as if he was dead.

“The
monkeys stood looking at him, and then there was the most awful hullabaloo you
ever beard. Such a barking and yelping, and half a dozen dogs rushed on the
stage, and didn’t they trundle those monkeys about. They nosed them, and pushed
them, and shook them, till they all ran away, all but Miss Green, who sat
shivering in a corner. After a while, she crept up to the dead dog, pawed him a
little, and didn’t he jump up as much alive as any of them? Everybody in the
room clapped and shouted, and then the curtain dropped, and the thing was over.
I wish he’d give another performance. Early in the morning he has to go to
Boston.”

Jack
pushed my paws from his knees and went outdoors, and I began to think that I
would very much like to see those performing animals. It was not yet tea time,
and I would have plenty of time to take a run down to the hotel where they were
staying, so I set out. It was a lovely autumn evening. The sun was going down
in a haze, and it was quite warm. Earlier in the day I had heard Mr. Morris say
that this was our Indian summer, and that we should soon have cold weather.

Fairport
was a pretty little town, and from the principal street one could look out upon
the blue water of the bay and see the island opposite, which was quite deserted
now, for all the summer visitors had gone home, and the Island House was shut
up.

I was
running down one of the steep side streets that led to the water when I met a
heavily-laden cart coming up. It must have been coming from one of the vessels,
for it was full of strange-looking boxes and packages. A fine-looking nervous
horse was drawing it, and he was straining every nerve to get it up the steep
hill. His driver was a burly, hard-faced man, and instead of letting his horse
stop a minute to rest he kept urging him forward. The poor horse kept looking
at his master, his eyes almost starting from his head in terror. He knew that the
whip was about to descend on his quivering body. And so it did, and there was
no one by to interfere. No one but a woman in a ragged shawl who would have no
influence with the driver. There was a very good humane society in Fairport,
and none of the teamsters dared ill-use their horses if any of the members were
near. This was a quiet out-of-the-way street, with only poor houses on it, and
the man probably knew that none of the members of the society would be likely
to be living in them. He whipped his horse, and whipped him, till every lash made
my heart ache, and if I had dared I would have bitten him severely. Suddenly,
there was a dull thud in the street. The horse had fallen down. The driver ran
to his head, but he was quite dead.

“Thank
God!” said the poorly-dressed woman, bitterly; “one more out of this world of misery.”
Then she turned and went down the street. I was glad for the horse. He would
never be frightened or miserable again, and I went slowly on, thinking that
death is the best thing that can happen to tortured animals.

The
Fairport hotel was built right in the centre of the town, and the shops and
houses crowded quite close about it. It was a high, brick building, and it was
called the Fairport House. As I was running along the sidewalk, I heard someone
speak to me, and looking up I saw Charlie Montague. I had heard the Morrises
say that his parents were staying at the hotel for a few weeks, while their
house was being repaired. He had his Irish setter, Brisk, with him, and a
handsome dog he was, as he stood waving his silky tail in the sunlight. Charlie
patted me, and then he and his dog went into the hotel.

I turned
into the stable yard. It was a small, choked-up place, and as I picked my way
under the cabs and wagons standing in the yard, I wondered why the hotel people
didn’t buy some of the old houses nearby, and tear them down, and make a stable
yard worthy of such a nice hotel. The hotel horses were just getting rubbed
down after their day’s work, and others were coming in. The men were talking
and laughing, and there was no sign of strange animals, so I went around to the
back of the yard. Here they were, in an empty cow stable, under a hay loft.
There were two little ponies tied up in a stall, two goats beyond them, and
dogs and monkeys in strong traveling cages. I stood in the doorway and stared
at them. I was sorry for the dogs to be shut up on such a lovely evening, but I
suppose their master was afraid of their getting lost, or being stolen, if he
let them loose.