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
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 every one 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 standing all round the
barnyard robed in white."
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXXI (IN THE COW STABLE)
"Isn't it a strange thing," said Miss Laura, "that a little thing like a
fly, can cause so much annoyance to animals as well as to people?
Sometimes when I am trying to get more sleep in the morning, their
little feet tickle me so that I am nearly frantic and have to fly out of
bed."
"You shall have some netting to put over your bed," said Mrs. Wood; "but
suppose, Laura, you had no hands to brush away the flies. Suppose your
whole body was covered with them, and you were tied up somewhere and
could not get loose. I can't imagine more exquisite torture myself. Last
summer the flies here were dreadful. It seems to me that they are
getting worse and worse every year, and worry the animals more. I
believe it is because the birds are getting thinned out all over the
country. There are not enough of them to catch the flies. John says that
the next improvements we make on the farm are to be wire gauze at all
the stable windows and screen doors to keep the little pests from the
horses and cattle.
"One afternoon last summer, Mr. Maxwell's mother came for me to go for a
drive with her. The heat was intense, and when we got down by the river,
she proposed getting out of the phaeton and sitting under the trees, to
see if it would be any cooler. She was driving a horse that she had got
from the hotel in the village, a roan horse that was clipped, and
check-reined, and had his tail docked. I wouldn't drive behind a
tailless horse now. Then, I wasn't so particular. However, I made her
unfasten the check-rein before I'd set foot in the carriage. Well, I
thought that horse would go mad. He'd tremble and shiver, and look so
pitifully at us. The flies were nearly eating him up. Then he'd start a
little. Mrs. Maxwell had a weight at his head to hold him, but he could
easily have dragged that. He was a good dispositioned horse, and he
didn't want to run away, but he could not stand still. I soon jumped up
and slapped him, and rubbed him till my hands were dripping wet. The
poor brute was so grateful and would keep touching my arm with his nose.
Mrs. Maxwell sat under the trees fanning herself and laughing at me, but
I didn't care. How could I enjoy myself with a dumb creature writhing in
pain before me?
"A docked horse can neither eat nor sleep comfortably in the fly season.
In one of our New England villages they have a sign up, 'Horses taken in
to grass. Long tails, one dollar and fifty cents. Short tails, one
dollar.' And it just means that the short-tailed ones are taken cheaper,
because they are so bothered by the flies that they can't eat much,
while the long-tailed ones are able to brush them away, and eat in
peace. I read the other day of a Buffalo coal dealer's horse that was in
such an agony through flies, that he committed suicide. You know animals
will do that. I've read of horses and dogs drowning themselves. This
horse had been clipped, and his tail was docked, and he was turned out
to graze. The flies stung him till he was nearly crazy. He ran up to a
picket fence, and sprang up on the sharp spikes. There he hung, making
no effort to get down. Some men saw him, and they said it was a clear
case of suicide.
"I would like to have the power to take every man who cuts off a horse's
tail, and tie his hands and turn him out in a field in the hot sun, with
little clothing on, and plenty of flies about. Then we would see if he
wouldn't sympathize with the poor, dumb beast. It's the most senseless
thing in the world, this docking fashion. They've a few flimsy arguments
about a horse with a docked tail being stronger-backed, like a
short-tailed sheep, but I don't believe a word of it. The horse was made
strong enough to do the work he's got to do, and man can't improve on
him. Docking is a cruel, wicked thing. Now, there's a ghost of an
argument in favor of check-reins, on certain occasions. A fiery, young
horse can't run away, with an overdrawn check, and in speeding horses a
tight check-rein will make them hold their heads up, and keep them from
choking.
"But I don't believe in raising colts in a way to make them fiery, and I
wish there wasn't a race horse on the face of the earth, so if it
depended on me, every kind of check-rein would go. It's a pity we women
can't vote, Laura. We'd do away with a good many abuses."
Miss Laura smiled, but it was a very faint, almost an unhappy smile, and
Mrs. Wood said hastily, "Let us talk about something else. Did you ever
hear that cows will give less milk on a dark day than on a bright one?"
"No; I never did," said Miss Laura.
"Well, they do. They are most sensitive animals. One finds out all
manners of curious things about animals if he makes a study of them.
Cows are wonderful creatures, I think, and so grateful for good usage
that they return every scrap of care given them, with interest. Have you
ever heard anything about dehorning, Laura?"
"Not much, auntie. Does uncle approve of it?"
"No, indeed. He'd just as soon think of cutting their tails off, as of
dehorning them. He says he guesses the Creator knew how to make a cow
better than he does. Sometimes I tell John that his argument doesn't
hold good, for a man in some ways can improve on nature. In the natural
course of things, a cow would be feeding her calf for half a year, but
we take it away from her, and raise it as well as she could and get an
extra quantity of milk from her in addition. I don't know what to think
myself about dehorning. Mr. Windham's cattle are all polled, and he has
an open space in his barn for them, instead of keeping them in stalls,
and he says they're more comfortable and not so confined. I suppose in
sending cattle to sea, it's necessary to take their horns off, but when
they're going to be turned out to grass, it seems like mutilating them.
Our cows couldn't keep the dogs away from the sheep if they didn't have
their horns. Their horns are their means of defense."
"Do your cattle stand in these stalls all winter?" asked Miss Laura.
"Oh, yes, except when they're turned out in the barnyard, and then John
usually has to send a man to keep them moving or they'd take cold.
Sometimes on very fine days they get out all day. You know cows aren't
like horses. John says they're like great milk machines. You've got to
keep them quiet, only exercising enough to keep them in health. If a cow
is hurried or worried, or chilled or heated, it stops her milk yield.
And bad usage poisons it. John says you can't take a stick and strike a
cow across the back, without her milk being
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