Beautiful Joe (6 page)

When Billy
was five months old, he had his first walk in the street. Miss Laura knew that
he had been well trained, so she did not hesitate to take him into the town.
She was not the kind of a young lady to go into the street with a dog that
would not behave himself, and she was never willing to attract attention to
herself by calling out orders to any of her pets.

As soon as
we got down the front steps, she said, quietly to Billy, “To heel.” It was very
hard for little, playful Billy to keep close to her when he saw so many new and
wonderful things about him. He had gotten acquainted with everything in the
house and garden, but this outside world was full of things he wanted to look
at and smell of, and he was fairly crazy to play with some of the pretty dogs he
saw running about. But he did just as he was told.

Soon we
came to a shop, and Miss Laura went in to buy some ribbons. She said to me, “Stay
out,” but Billy she took in with her. I watched them through the glass door,
and saw her go to a counter and sit down. Billy stood behind her till she said,
“Lie down.” Then he curled himself at her feet.

He lay
quietly, even when she left him and went to another counter. But he eyed her
very anxiously till she came back and said, “Up,” to him. Then he sprang up and
followed her out to the street.

She stood
in the shop door, and looked lovingly down on us as we fawned on her. “Good
dogs,” she said, softly; “you shall have a present.” We went behind her again,
and she took us to a shop where we both lay beside the counter. When we heard
her ask the clerk for solid rubber balls, we could scarcely keep still. We both
knew what “ball” meant.

Taking the
parcel in her hand, she came out into the street. She did not do any more
shopping, but turned her face toward the sea. She was going to give us a nice
walk along the beach, although it was a dark, disagreeable, cloudy day when
most young ladies would have stayed in the house. The Morris children never
minded the weather. Even in the pouring rain, the boys would put on rubber
boots and coats and go out to play. Miss Laura walked along, the high wind
blowing her cloak and dress about, and when we got past the houses, she had a
little run with us. We jumped, and frisked, and barked, till we were tired; and
then we walked quietly along.

A little
distance ahead of us were some boys throwing sticks in the water for two
Newfoundland dogs. Suddenly a quarrel sprang up between the dogs. They were
both powerful creatures, and fairly matched as regarded size. It was terrible
to hear their fierce growling, and to see the way in which they tore at each
other’s throats. I looked at Miss Laura. If she had said a word, I would have
run in and helped the dog that was getting the worst of it. But she told me to
keep back, and ran on herself.

The boys
were throwing water on the dogs and pulling their tails, and hurling stones at
them, but they could not separate them. Their heads seemed locked together, and
they went back and forth over the stones, the boys crowding around them,
shouting, and beating, and kicking at them.

“Stand
back, boys,” said Miss Laura, “I’ll stop them.” She pulled a little parcel from
her purse, bent over the dogs, scattered a powder on their noses, and the next
instant the dogs were yards apart, nearly sneezing their heads off.

“I say,
Missis, what did you do? What’s that stuff? Whew, it’s pepper!” the boys
exclaimed.

Miss Laura
sat down on a flat rock, and looked at them with a very pale face. “Oh, boys,”
she said, “why did you make those dogs fight? It is so cruel. They were playing
happily till you set them on each other. Just see how they have torn their
handsome coats, and how the blood is dripping from them.”

“’Taint my
fault,” said one of the lads, sullenly. “Jim Jones there said his dog could
lick my dog, and I said he couldn’t—and he couldn’t, nuther.”

“Yes, he
could,” cried the other boy, “and if you say he couldn’t, I’ll smash your head.”

The two
boys began sidling up to each other with clenched fists, and a third boy, who
had a mischievous face, seized the paper that had had the pepper in it, and
running up to them shook it in their faces.

There was
enough left to put all thoughts of fighting out of their heads. They began to
cough, and choke, and splutter, and finally found themselves beside the dogs,
where the four of them had a lively time.

The other
boys yelled with delight, and pointed their fingers at them. “A sneezing
concert. Thank you, gentlemen.
Angcore, angcore!
”

Miss Laura
laughed too, she could not help it, and even Billy and I curled up our lips.
After a while they sobered down, and then finding that the boys hadn’t a
handkerchief between them, Miss Laura took her own soft one, and dipping it in
a spring of fresh water nearby, wiped the red eyes of the sneezers.

Their ill
humor had gone, and when she turned to leave them, and said, coaxingly, “You
won’t make those dogs fight any more, will you?” they said, “No, sirree, Bob.”

Miss Laura
went slowly home, and ever afterward when she met any of those boys, they
called her “Miss Pepper.”

When we
got home we found Willie curled up by the window in the hall, reading a book.
He was too fond of reading, and his mother often told him to put away his book
and run about with the other boys. This afternoon Miss Laura laid her hand on
his shoulder and said, “I was going to give the dogs a little game of ball, but
I’m rather tired.”

“Gammon
and spinach,” he replied, shaking off her hand, “you’re always tired.”

She sat
down in a hall chair and looked at him. Then she began to tell him about the
dog fight. He was much interested, and the book slipped to the floor. When she
finished he said, “You’re a daisy every day. Go now and rest yourself.” Then
snatching the balls from her, he called us and ran down to the basement. But he
was not quick enough though to escape her arm. She caught him to her and kissed
him repeatedly. He was the baby and pet of the family, and he loved her dearly,
though he spoke impatiently to her oftener than either of the other boys.

We had a
grand game with Willie. Miss Laura had trained us to do all kinds of things
with balls jumping for them, playing hide-and-seek, and catching them.

Billy
could do more things than I could. One thing he did which I thought was very
clever. He played ball by himself. He was so crazy about ball play that he
could never get enough of it. Miss Laura played all she could with him, but she
had to help her mother with the sewing and the housework, and do lessons with
her father, for she was only seventeen years old, and had not left off studying.
So Billy would take his ball and go off by himself. Sometimes he rolled it over
the floor, and sometimes he threw it in the air and pushed it through the
staircase railings to the hall below. He always listened till he heard it drop,
then he ran down and brought it back and pushed it through again. He did this
till he was tired, and then he brought the ball and laid it at Miss Laura’s
feet.

We both
had been taught a number of tricks. We could sneeze and cough, and be dead
dogs, and say our prayers, and stand on our heads, and mount a ladder and say
the alphabet—this was the hardest of all, and it took Miss Laura a long time to
teach us. We never began till a book was laid before us. Then we stared at it,
and Miss Laura said, “Begin, Joe and Billy—say A.”

For A, we
gave a little squeal. B was louder C was louder still. We barked for some
letters, and growled for others. We always turned a summersault for S. When we
got to Z, we gave the book a push and had a frolic around the room.

When any
one came in, and Miss Laura had us show off any of our tricks, the remark
always was, “What clever dogs. They are not like other dogs.”

That was a
mistake. Billy and I were not any brighter than many a miserable cur that
skulked about the streets of Fairport. It was kindness and patience that did it
all. When I was with Jenkins he thought I was a very stupid dog. He would have
laughed at the idea of any one teaching me anything. But I was only sullen and
obstinate, because I was kicked about so much. If he had been kind to me, I
would have done anything for him.

I loved to
wait on Miss Laura and Mrs. Morris and they taught both Billy and me to make
ourselves useful about the house. Mrs. Morris didn’t like going up and down the
three long staircases, and sometimes we just raced up and down, waiting on her.

How often
I have heard her go into the hall and say, “Please send me down a clean duster,
Laura. Joe, you get it.” I would run gaily up the steps, and then would come
Billy’s turn. “Billy, I have forgotten my keys. Go get them.”

After a
time we began to know the names of different articles, and where they were
kept, and could get them ourselves. On sweeping days we worked very hard, and
enjoyed the fun. If Mrs. Morris was too far away to call to Mary for what she wanted,
she wrote the name on a piece of paper, and told us to take it to her.

Billy
always took the letters from the postman, and carried the morning paper up to
Mr. Morris’s study, and I always put away the clean clothes. After they were
mended, Mrs. Morris folded each article and gave it to me, mentioning the name
of the owner, so that I could lay it on his bed, There was no need for her to
tell me the names. I knew by the smell. All human beings have a strong smell to
a dog, even though they mayn’t notice it themselves. Mrs. Morris never knew how
she bothered me by giving away Miss Laura’s clothes to poor people. Once, I
followed her track all through the town, and at last found it was only a pair
of her boots on a ragged child in the gutter.

I must say
a word about Billy’s tail before I close this chapter. It is the custom to cut
the ends of fox terrier’s tails, but leave their ears untouched. Billy came to
Miss Laura so young that his tail had not been cut off, and she would not have
it done.

One day
Mr. Robinson came in to see him and he said, “You have made a fine-looking dog
of him, but his appearance is ruined by the length of his tail.”

“Mr.
Robinson,” said Mrs. Morris, patting little Billy, who lay on her lap, “don’t
you think that this little dog has a beautifully proportioned body?”

“Yes, I
do,” said the gentleman. “His points are all correct, save that one.”

“But,” she
said, “if our Creator made that beautiful little body, don’t you think he is
wise enough to know what length of tail would be in proportion to it?”

Mr.
Robinson would not answer her. He only laughed and said that he thought she and
Miss Laura were both “cranks.”

The Morris
boys were all different. Jack was bright and clever, Ned was a wag, Willie was
a bookworm, and Carl was a born trader.

He was
always exchanging toys and books with his schoolmates, and they never got the
better of him in a bargain. He said that when he grew up he was going to be a
merchant, and he had already begun to carry on a trade in canaries and
goldfish. He was very fond of what he called “his yellow pets,” yet he never
kept a pair of birds or a goldfish, if he had a good offer for them.

He slept
alone in a large, sunny room at the top of the house. By his own request, it
was barely furnished, and there he raised his canaries and kept his goldfish.

He was not
fond of having visitors coming to his room, because, he said, they frightened
the canaries. After Mrs. Morris made his bed in the morning, the door was closed,
and no one was supposed to go in till he came from school. Once Billy and I
followed him upstairs without his knowing it, but as soon as he saw us he sent
us down in a great hurry.

One day
Bella walked into his room to inspect the canaries. She was quite a spoiled
bird by this time, and I heard Carl telling the family afterward that it was as
good as a play to see Miss Bella strutting in with her breast stuck out, and
her little, conceited air, and hear her say, shrilly, “Good morning, birds,
good morning! How do you do, Carl? Glad to see you, boy.”

“Well, I’m
not glad to see you,” he said decidedly, “and don’t you ever come up here
again. You’d frighten my canaries to death.” And he sent her flying downstairs.

How cross
she was! She came shrieking to Miss Laura. “Bella loves birds. Bella wouldn’t
hurt birds. Carl’s a bad boy.”

Miss Laura
petted and soothed her, telling her to go find Davy, and he would play with
her. Bella and the rat were great friends. It was very funny to see them going
about the house together. From the very first she had liked him, and coaxed him
into her cage, where he soon became quite at home—so much so that he always
slept there. About nine o’clock every evening, if he was not with her, she went
all over the house, crying, “Davy! Davy! time to go to bed. Come sleep in Bella’s
cage.”

He was
very fond of the nice sweet cakes she got to eat, but she never could get him
to eat coffee grounds—the food she liked best.

Miss Laura
spoke to Carl about Bella, and told him he had hurt her feelings, so he petted
her a little to make up for it. Then his mother told him that she thought he
was making a mistake in keeping his canaries so much to themselves. They had
become so timid, that when she went into the room they were uneasy till she
left it. She told him that petted birds or animals are sociable and like
company, unless they are kept by themselves, when they become shy. She advised
him to let the other boys go into the room, and occasionally to bring some of
his pretty singers downstairs, where all the family could enjoy seeing and hearing
them, and where they would get used to other people besides himself.

Carl
looked thoughtful, and his mother went on to say that there was no one in the
house, not even the cat, that would harm his birds.

“You might
even charge admission for a day or two,” said Jack, gravely, “and introduce us
to them, and make a little money.”

Carl was
rather annoyed at this, but his mother calmed him by showing him a letter she
had just gotten from one of her brothers, asking her to let one of her boys
spend his Christmas holidays in the country with him.

“I want
you to go, Carl,” she said.

He was
very much pleased, but looked sober when he thought of his pets. “Laura and I
will take care of them,” said his mother, “and start the new management of
them.”

“Very
well,” said Carl, “I will go then; I’ve no young ones now, so you will not find
them much trouble.”

I thought
it was a great deal of trouble to take care of them. The first morning after
Carl left, Billy, and Bella, and Davy, and I followed Miss Laura upstairs. She
made us sit in a row by the door, lest we should startle the canaries. She had
a great many things to do. First, the canaries had their baths. They had to get
them at the same time every morning. Miss Laura filled the little white dishes
with water and put them in the cages, and then came and sat on a stool by the
door. Bella, and Billy, and Davy climbed into her lap, and I stood close by
her. It was so funny to watch those canaries. They put their heads on one side and
looked first at their little baths and then at us. They knew we were strangers.
Finally, as we were all very quiet, they got into the water; and what a good
time they had, fluttering their wings and splashing, and cleaning themselves so
nicely.

Then they
got up on their perches and sat in the sun, shaking themselves and picking at
their feathers.

Miss Laura
cleaned each cage, and gave each bird some mixed rape and canary seed. I heard
Carl tell her before he left not to give them much hemp seed, for that was too
fattening. He was very careful about their food. During the summer I had often
seen him taking up nice green things to them: celery, chickweed, tender
cabbage, peaches, apples, pears, bananas; and now at Christmas time, he had
green stuff growing in pots on the window ledge.

Besides
that he gave them crumbs of coarse bread, crackers, lumps of sugar, cuttlefish
to peck at, and a number of other things. Miss Laura did everything just as he
told her; but I think she talked to the birds more than he did. She was very
particular about their drinking water, and washed out the little glass cups
that held it most carefully.

After the
canaries were clean and comfortable, Miss Laura set their cages in the sun, and
turned to the goldfish. They were in large glass globes on the windows eat. She
took a long-handled tin cup, and dipped out the fish from one into a basin of
water. Then she washed the globe thoroughly and put the fish back, and scattered
wafers of fish food on the top. The fish came up and snapped at it, and acted
as if they were glad to get it. She did each globe and then her work was over
for one morning.

She went
away for a while, but every few hours through the day she ran up to Carl’s room
to see how the fish and canaries were getting on. If the room was too chilly
she turned on more heat; but she did not keep it too warm, for that would make
the birds tender.

After a
time the canaries got to know her, and hopped gaily around their cages, and
chirped and sang whenever they saw her coming. Then she began to take some of
them downstairs, and to let them out of their cages for an hour or two every
day. They were very happy little creatures, and chased each other about the
room, and flew on Miss Laura’s head, and pecked saucily at her face as she sat
sewing and watching them. They were not at all afraid of me nor of Billy, and
it was quite a sight to see them hopping up to Bella. She looked so large
beside them.

One little
bird became ill while Carl was away, and Miss Laura had to give it a great deal
of attention. She gave it plenty of hemp seed to make it fat, and very often
the yolk of a hard- boiled egg, and kept a nail in its drinking water, and gave
it a few drops of alcohol in its bath every morning to keep it from taking
cold. The moment the bird finished taking its bath, Miss Laura took the dish
from the cage, for the alcohol made the water poisonous. Then vermin came on
it; and she had to write to Carl to ask him what do. He told her to hang a
muslin bag full of sulphur over the swing, so that the bird would dust it down on
her feathers. That cured the little thing, and when Carl came home, he found it
quite well again.

One day,
just after he got back, Mrs. Montague drove up to the house with canary cage
carefully done up in a shawl. She said that a bad-tempered housemaid, in
cleaning the cage that morning, had gotten angry with the bird and struck it,
breaking its leg. She was very much annoyed with the girl for her cruelty, and
had dismissed her, and now she wanted Carl to take her bird and nurse it, as she
knew nothing about canaries.

Carl had
just come in from school. He threw down his books, took the shawl from the cage
and looked in. The poor little canary was sitting in a corner. Its eyes were
half shut, one leg hung loose, and it was making faint chirps of distress.

Carl was
very much interested in it. He got Mrs. Montague to help him, and together they
split matches, tore up strips of muslin, and bandaged the broken leg. He put
the little bird back in the cage, and it seemed more comfortable. “I think he
will do now,” he said to Mrs. Montague, “but hadn’t you better leave him with
me for a few days?”

She gladly
agreed to this and went away, after telling him that the bird’s name was Dick.

The next
morning at the breakfast table, I heard Carl telling his mother that as soon as
he woke up he sprang out of bed and went to see how his canary was. During the
night, poor, foolish Dick had picked off the splints from his leg, and now it
was as bad as ever. “I shall have to perform a surgical operation.” he said.

I did not
know what he meant, so I watched him when, after breakfast, he brought the bird
down to his mother’s room. She held it while he took a pair of sharp scissors,
and cut its leg right off a little way above the broken place. Then he put some
vaseline on the tiny stump, bound it up, and left Dick in his mother’s care.
All the morning, as she sat sewing, she watched him to see that he did not pick
the bandage away.

When Carl
came home, Dick was so much better that he had managed to fly up on his perch,
and was eating seeds quite gaily. “Poor Dick!” said Carl, “A leg and a stump!”
Dick imitated him in a few little chirps, “A leg and a stump!”

“Why, he
is saying it too,” exclaimed Carl, and burst out laughing.

Dick
seemed cheerful enough, but it was very pitiful to see him dragging his poor
little stump around the cage, and resting it against the perch to keep him from
falling. When Mrs. Montague came the next day, she could not bear to look at
him. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, “I cannot take that disfigured bird home.”

I could
not help thinking how different she was from Miss Laura, who loved any creature
all the more for having some blemish about it.

“What
shall I do?” said Mrs. Montague. “I miss my little bird so much. I shall have
to get a new one. Carl, will you sell me one?”

“I will
give
you one, Mrs. Montague,” said the boy, eagerly. “I would like to do so.” Mrs.
Morris looked pleased to hear Carl say this. She used to fear sometimes, that
in his love for making money, he would become selfish.

Mrs.
Montague was very kind to the Morris family, and Carl seemed quite pleased to
do her a favor. He took her up to his room, and let her choose the bird she
liked best. She took a handsome, yellow one, called Barry. He was a good
singer, and a great favorite of Carl’s. The boy put him in the cage, wrapped it
up well, for it was a cold, snowy day, and carried it out to Mrs. Montague’s
sleigh.

She gave
him a pleasant smile, and drove away, and Carl ran up the steps into the house.
“It’s all right, mother,” he said, giving Mrs. Morris a hearty, boyish kiss, as
she stood waiting for him. “I don’t mind letting her have it.”

“But you
expected to sell that one, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Mrs.
Smith said maybe she’d take it when she came home from Boston, but I dare say
she’d change her mind and get one there.”

“How much
were you going to ask for him?”

“Well, I
wouldn’t sell Barry for less than ten dollars, or rather, I wouldn’t have sold
him,” and he ran out to the stable.

Mrs.
Morris sat on the hall chair, patting me as I rubbed against her, in rather an
absent minded way. Then she got up and went into her husband’s study, and told
him what Carl had done.

Mr. Morris
seemed very pleased to hear about it, but when his wife asked him to do
something to make up the loss to the boy, he said: “I had rather not do that.
To encourage a child to do a kind action, and then to reward him for it, is not
always a sound principle to go upon.”

But Carl
did not go without his reward. That evening, Mrs. Montague’s coachman brought a
note to the house addressed to Mr. Carl Morris. He read it aloud to the family.

M
Y
D
EAR
C
ARL
:
I am charmed with my little bird, and he has whispered to me one of the secrets
of your room. You want fifteen dollars very much to buy something for it. I am
sure you won’t be offended with an old friend for supplying you the means to
get this something.

A
DA
M
ONTAGUE

“Just the
thing for my stationary tank for the goldfish,” exclaimed Carl. “I’ve wanted it
for a long time; it isn’t good to keep them in globes, but how in the world did
she find out? I’ve never told anyone.”

Mrs.
Morris smiled, and said; “Barry must have told her;” as she took the money from
Carl to put away for him.

Mrs.
Montague got to be very fond of her new pet. She took care of him herself, and
I have heard her tell Mrs. Morris most wonderful stories about him—stories so
wonderful that I should say they were not true if I did not how intelligent
dumb creatures get to be under kind treatment.

She only
kept him in his cage at night, and when she began looking for him at bedtime to
put him there, he always hid himself. She would search a short time, and then
sit down, and he always came out of his hiding place, chirping in a saucy way
to make her look at him.

She said
that he seemed to take delight in teasing her. Once when he was in the drawing room
with her, she was called away to speak to someone at the telephone. When she
came back, she found that one of the servants had come into the room and left
the door open leading to a veranda. The trees outside were full of yellow
birds, and she was in despair, thinking that Barry had flown out with them. She
looked out, but could not see him. Then, lest he had not left the room, she got
a chair and carried it about, standing on it to examine the walls, and see if
Barry was hidden among the pictures and bric-à-brac. But no Barry was there. She
at last sank down, exhausted, on a sofa. She heard a wicked, little peep, and
looking up, saw Barry sitting on one of the rounds of the chair that she had
been carrying about to look for him. He had been there all the time. She was so
glad to see him, that she never thought of scolding him.