Beautiful Joe - Marshall Saunders (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗
- Author: Marshall Saunders
Book online «Beautiful Joe - Marshall Saunders (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗». Author Marshall Saunders
stopped occasionally to give me a word or look, to show that she knew I
was near.
Mrs. Wood paused in front of a building on the main street. A great many
boys and girls were going in, and we went with them. We found ourselves
in a large room, with a platform at one end of it. There were some
chairs on this platform and a small table.
A boy stood by this table with his hand on a bell. Presently he rang it,
and then every one kept still. Mrs. Wood whispered to Miss Laura that
this boy was the president of the band, and the young man with the pale
face and curly hair who sat in front of him was Mr. Maxwell, the
artist's son, who had formed this Band of Mercy.
The lad who presided had a ringing, pleasant voice. He said they would
begin their meeting by singing a hymn. There was an organ near the
platform, and a young girl played on it, while all the other boys and
girls stood up, and sang very sweetly and clearly.
After they had sung the hymn, the president asked for the report of
their last meeting.
A little girl, blushing and hanging her head, came forward, and read
what was written on a paper that she held in her hand.
The president made some remarks after she had finished, and then every
one had to vote. It was just like a meeting of grown people, and I was
surprised to see how good those children were. They did not frolic nor
laugh, but all seemed sober and listened attentively.
After the voting was over, the president called upon John Turner to give
a recitation. This was the boy whom we saw on the way there. He walked
up to the platform, made a bow, and said that he had learned two stories
for his recitation, out of the paper, "Dumb Animals." One story was
about a horse, and the other was about a dog, and he thought that they
were two of the best animal stories on record. He would tell the horse
story first.
"A man in Missouri had to go to Nebraska to see about some land. He went
on horseback, on a horse that he had trained himself, and that came at
his whistle like a dog. On getting into Nebraska, he came to a place
where there were two roads. One went by a river, and the other went over
the hill. The man saw that the travel went over the hill, but thought
he'd take the river road. He didn't know that there was a quicksand
across it, and that people couldn't use it in spring and summer. There
used to be a sign board to tell strangers about it, but it had been
taken away. The man got off his horse to let him graze, and walked along
till he got so far ahead of the horse that he had to sit down and wait
for him. Suddenly he found that he was on a quicksand. His feet had sunk
in the sand, and he could not get them out. He threw himself down, and
whistled for his horse, and shouted for help, but no one came. He could
hear some young people singing out on the river, but they could not hear
him. The terrible sand drew him in almost to his shoulders, and he
thought he was lost. At that moment the horse came running up, and stood
by his master. The man was too low down to get hold of the saddle or
bridle, so he took hold of the horse's tail, and told him to go. The
horse gave an awful pull, and landed his master on safe ground."
Everybody clapped his hands, and stamped when this story was finished,
and called out: "The dog story--the dog story!"
The boy bowed and smiled, and began again. "You all know what a
'round-up' of cattle is, so I need not explain. Once a man down south
was going to have one, and he and his boys and friends were talking it
over. There was an ugly, black steer in the herd, and they were
wondering whether their old yellow dog would be able to manage him. The
dog's name was Tige, and he lay and listened wisely to their talk. The
next day there was a scene of great confusion. The steer raged and tore
about, and would allow no one to come within whip touch of him. Tige,
who had always been brave, skulked about for a while, and then, as if he
had got up a little spirit, he made a run at the steer. The steer
sighted him, gave a bellow, and, lowering his horns, ran at him. Tige
turned tail, and the young men that owned him were frantic. They'd been
praising him, and thought they were going to have it proven false. Their
father called out: 'Don't shoot Tige, till you see where he's running
to.' The dog ran right to the cattle pen. The steer was so enraged that
he never noticed where he was going, and dashed in after him. Tige
leaped the wall, and came back to the gate, barking and yelping for the
men to come and shut the steer in. They shut the gate and petted Tige,
and bought him a collar with a silver plate."
The boy was loudly cheered, and went to his seat. The president said he
would like to have remarks made about these two stories.
Several children put up their hands, and he asked each one to speak in
turn. One said that if that man's horse had had a docked tail, his
master wouldn't have been able to reach it, and would have perished.
Another said that if the man hadn't treated his horse kindly, he never
would have come at his whistle, and stood over him to see what he could
do to help him. A third child said that the people on the river weren't
as quick at hearing the voice of the man in trouble as the horse was.
When this talk was over, the president called for some stories of
foreign animals.
Another boy came forward, made his bow, and said, in a short, abrupt
voice, "My uncle's name is Henry Worthington. He is an Englishman, and
once he was a soldier in India. One day when he was hunting in the
Punjab, he saw a mother monkey carrying a little dead baby monkey. Six
months after, he was in the same jungle. Saw same monkey still carrying
dead baby monkey, all shriveled up. Mother monkey loved her baby monkey,
and wouldn't give it up."
The boy went to his seat, and the president, with a queer look in his
face, said, "That's a very good story, Ronald--if it is true."
None of the children laughed, but Mrs. Wood's face got like a red poppy,
and Miss Laura bit her lip, and Mr. Maxwell buried his head in his arms,
his whole frame shaking.
The boy who told the story looked very angry He jumped up again. "My
uncle's a true man, Phil. Dodge, and never told a lie in his life."
The president remained standing, his face a deep scarlet, and a tall boy
at the back of the room got up and said, "Mr. President, what would be
impossible in this climate, might be possible in a hot country like
India. Doesn't heat sometimes draw up and preserve things?"
The president's face cleared. "Thank you for the suggestion," he said.
"I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings; but you know there is a rule
in the band that only true stories are to be told here. We have five
more minutes for foreign stories. Has any one else one?"
* * * * *
CHAPTER XX (STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS)
A small girl, with twinkling eyes and a merry face, got up, just behind
Miss Laura, and made her way to the front. "My dranfadder says," she
began, in a piping little voice, "dat when he was a little boy his
fadder brought him a little monkey from de West Indies. De naughty boys
in de village used to tease de little monkey, and he runned up a tree
one day. Dey was drowing stones at him, and a man dat was paintin' de
house druv 'em away. De monkey runned down de tree, and shook hands wid
de man. My dranfadder saw him," she said, with a shake of her head at
the president, as if she was afraid he would doubt her.
There was great laughing and clapping of hands when this little girl
took her seat, and she hopped right up again and ran back. "Oh, I
fordot," she went on, in her squeaky, little voice, "dat my dranfadder
says dat afterward de monkey upset de painter's can of oil, and rolled
in it, and den jumped down in my dranfadder's flour barrel."
The president looked very much amused, and said, "We have had some good
stories about monkeys, now let us have some more about our home animals.
Who can tell us another story about a horse?"
Three or four boys jumped up, but the president said they would take one
at a time. The first one was this: A Riverdale boy was walking along the
bank of a canal in Hoytville. He saw a boy driving two horses, which
were towing a canal-boat. The first horse was lazy, and the boy got
angry and struck him several times over the head with his whip. The
Riverdale boy shouted across to him, begging him not to be so cruel; but
the boy paid no attention. Suddenly the horse turned, seized his
tormentor by the shoulder, and pushed him into the canal. The water was
not deep, and the boy, after floundering about for a few seconds, came
out dripping with mud and filth, and sat down on the tow path, and
looked at the horse with such a comical expression, that the Riverdale
boy had to stuff his handkerchief in his mouth to keep from laughing.
"It is to be hoped that he would learn a lesson," said the president,
"and be kinder to his horse in the future. Now, Bernard Howe, your
story."
The boy was a brother to the little girl who had told the monkey story,
and he, too, had evidently been talking to his grandfather. He told two
stories, and Miss Laura listened eagerly, for they were about Fairport.
The boy said that when his grandfather was young, he lived in Fairport,
Maine. On a certain day he stood in the market square to see their first
stage-coach put together. It had come from Boston in pieces, for there
was no one in Fairport that could make one. The coach went away up into
the country one day, and came back the next. For a long time no one
understood driving the horses properly, and they came in day after day
with the blood streaming from them. The whiffle-tree would swing round
and hit them, and when their collars were taken off, their necks would
be raw and bloody. After a time, the men got to understand how to drive
a coach, and the horses did not suffer so much.
The other story was about a team-boat, not a steamboat. More than
seventy years ago, they had no steamers running between Fairport and the
island opposite where people went for the summer, but they had what they
called a team-boat, that is, a boat with machinery to make it go, that
could be worked by horses. There were eight horses that went around and
around, and made the boat go. One afternoon, two dancing masters, who
were wicked fellows, that played the fiddle, and never went to church on
Sundays, got on the boat, and sat just where the horses had to pass them
as they went around.
Every time the horses went by, they jabbed them with their penknives.
The man who was driving the
Comments (0)