Beautiful Joe - Marshall Saunders (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗

that much worse, and as for

drinking the milk that comes from a cow that isn't kept clean, you'd

better throw it away and drink water. When I was in Chicago, my

sister-in-law kept complaining to her milkman about what she called the

'cowy' smell to her milk. 'It's the animal odor, ma'am,' he said, 'and

it can't be helped. All milk smells like that.' 'It's dirt,' I said,

when she asked my opinion about it. 'I'll wager my best bonnet that that

man's cows are kept dirty. Their skins are plastered up with filth, and

as the poison in them can't escape that way it's coming out through the

milk, and you're helping to dispose of it.' She was astonished to hear

this, and she got her milkman's address, and one day dropped in upon

him. She said that his cows were standing in a stable that was

comparatively clean, but that their bodies were in just the state that I

described them as living in. She advised the man to card and brush his

cows every day, and said that he need bring her no more milk.

 

"That shows how you city people are imposed upon with regard to your

milk. I should think you'd be poisoned with the treatment your cows

receive, and even when your milk is examined you can't tell whether it

is pure or not. In New York the law only requires thirteen per cent. of

solids in milk. That's absurd, for you can feed a cow on swill and still

get fourteen per cent. of solids in it. Oh! you city people are queer."

 

Miss Laura laughed heartily "What a prejudice you have against large

towns, auntie."

 

"Yes, I have," said Mrs. Wood, honestly. "I often wish we could break up

a few of our cities, and scatter the people through the country. Look at

the lovely farms all about here, some of them with only an old man and

woman on them. The boys are off to the cities, slaving in stores and

offices, and growing pale and sickly. It would have broken my heart if

Harry had taken to city ways. I had a plain talk with your uncle when I

married him, and said, 'Now, my boy's only a baby, and I want him to be

brought up so that he will love country life. How are we going to manage

it?'

 

"Your uncle looked at me with a sly twinkle in his eye, and said I was a

pretty fair specimen of a country girl, suppose we brought up Harry the

way I'd been brought up. I knew he was only joking, yet I got quite

excited. 'Yes,' I said, 'Do as my father and mother did. Have a farm

about twice as large as you can manage. Don't keep a hired man. Get up

at daylight and slave till dark. Never take a holiday. Have the girls do

the housework, and take care of the hens, and help pick the fruit, and

make the boys tend the colts and the calves, and put all the money they

make in the bank. Don't take any papers, for they would waste their time

reading them, and it's too far to go the postoffice oftener than once a

week; and'--but, I don't remember the rest of what I said. Anyway your

uncle burst into a roar of laughter. 'Hattie,' he said, 'my farm's too

big. I'm going to sell some of it, and enjoy myself a little more.' That

very week he sold fifty acres, and he hired an extra man, and got me a

good girl, and twice a week he left his work in the afternoon, and took

me for a drive. Harry held the reins in his tiny fingers, and John told

him that Dolly, the old mare we were driving, should be called his, and

the very next horse he bought should be called his, too, and he should

name it and have it for his own; and he would give him five sheep, and

he should have his own bank book and keep his accounts; and Harry

understood, mere baby though he was, and from that day he loved John as

his own father. If my father had had the wisdom that John has, his boys

wouldn't be the one a poor lawyer and the other a poor doctor in two

different cities; and our farm wouldn't be in the hands of strangers. It

makes me sick to go there. I think of my poor mother lying with her

tired hands crossed out in the churchyard, and the boys so far away, and

my father always hurrying and driving us--I can tell you, Laura, the

thing cuts both ways. It isn't all the fault of the boys that they leave

the country."

 

Mrs. Wood was silent for a little while after she made this long speech,

and Miss Laura said nothing. I took a turn or two up and down the

stable, thinking of many things. No matter how happy human beings seem

to be, they always have something to worry them. I was sorry for Mrs.

Wood, for her face had lost the happy look it usually wore. However, she

soon forgot her trouble, and said:

 

"Now, I must go and get the tea. This is Adele's afternoon out."

 

"I'll come, too," said Miss Laura, "for I promised her I'd make the

biscuits for tea this evening and let you rest." They both sauntered

slowly down the plank walk to the house, and I followed them.

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER XXXII (OUR RETURN HOME)

In October, the most beautiful of all the months, we were obliged to go

back to Fairport. Miss Laura could not bear to leave the farm, and her

face got very sorrowful when any one spoke of her going away. Still, she

had gotten well and strong, and was as brown as a berry, and she said

that she knew she ought to go home, and get back to her lessons.

 

Mr. Wood called October the golden month. Everything was quiet and

still, and at night and in the morning the sun had a yellow, misty look.

The trees in the orchard were loaded with fruit, and some of the leaves

were floating down, making a soft covering on the ground.

 

In the garden there were a great many flowers in bloom, in flaming red

and yellow colors. Miss Laura gathered bunches of them every day to put

in the parlor. One day when she was arranging them, she said,

regretfully, "They will soon be gone. I wish it could always be summer."

 

"You would get tired of it," said Mr. Harry, who had come up softly

behind her. "There's only one place where we could stand perpetual

summer, and that's in heaven."

 

"Do you suppose that it will always be summer there?" said Miss Laura,

turning around, and looking at him.

 

"I don't know. I imagine it will be, but I don't think anybody knows

much about it. We've got to wait."

 

Miss Laura's eyes fell on me. "Harry," she said, "do you think that dumb

animals will go to heaven?"

 

"I shall have to say again, I don't know," he replied. "Some people hold

that they do. In a Michigan paper, the other day, I came across one

writer's opinion on the subject. He says that among the best people of

all ages have been some who believed in the future life of animals.

Homer and the later Greeks, some of the Romans and early Christians held

this view--the last believing that God sent angels in the shape of birds

to comfort sufferers for the faith. St. Francis called the birds and

beasts his brothers. Dr. Johnson believed in a future life for animals,

as also did Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Jeremy Taylor, Agassiz,

Lamartine, and many Christian scholars. It seems as if they ought to

have some compensation for their terrible sufferings in this world. Then

to go to heaven, animals would only have to take up the thread of their

lives here. Man is a god to the lower creation. Joe worships you, much

as you worship your Maker. Dumb animals live in and for their masters.

They hang on our words and looks, and are dependent on us in almost

every way. For my own part, and looking at it from an earthly point of

view, I wish with all my heart that we may find our dumb friends in

paradise."

 

"And in the Bible," said Miss Laura, "animals are often spoken of. The

dove and the raven, the wolf and the lamb, and the leopard, and the

cattle that God says are his, and the little sparrow that can't fall to

the ground without our Father's knowing it."

 

"Still, there's nothing definite about their immortality," said Mr.

Harry. "However, we've got nothing to do with that. If it's right for

them to be in heaven, we'll find them there. All we have to do now is to

deal with the present, and the Bible plainly tells us that 'a righteous

man regardeth the life of his beast.'"

 

"I think I would be happier in heaven if dear old Joe were there," said

Miss Laura, looking wistfully at me. "He has been such a good dog. Just

think how he has loved and protected me. I think I should be lonely

without him."

 

"That reminds me of some poetry, or rather doggerel," said Mr. Harry,

"that I cutout of a newspaper for you yesterday;" and he drew from his

pocket a little slip of paper, and read this:

 

"Do doggies gang to heaven, Dad?

   Will oor auld Donald gang?

For noo to tak' him, faither wi' us,

   Wad be maist awfu' wrang."

 

 

There was a number of other verses, telling how many kind things old

Donald the dog had done for his master's family, and then it closed with

these lines:

 

"Withoot are dogs. Eh, faither, man,

     'Twould be an awfu' sin

To leave oor faithfu' doggie _there_,

     He's _certain_ to win in.

 

"Oor Donald's no like ither dogs,

     He'll _no_ be lockit oot,

If Donald's no let into heaven,

     I'll no gang there one foot."

 

"My sentiments exactly," said a merry voice behind Miss Laura and Mr.

Harry, and looking up they saw Mr. Maxwell. He was holding out one hand

to them, and in the other kept back a basket of large pears that Mr.

Harry promptly took from him, and offered to Miss Laura. "I've been

dependent upon animals for the most part of my comfort in this life,"

said Mr. Maxwell, "and I sha'n't be happy without them in heaven. I

don't see how you would get on without Joe, Miss Morris, and I want my

birds, and my snake, and my horse--how can I live without them? They're

almost all my life here."

 

"If some animals go to heaven and not others, I think that the dog has

the first claim," said Miss Laura. "He's the friend of man--the oldest

and best. Have you ever heard the legend about him and Adam?"

 

"No," said Mr. Maxwell.

 

"Well, when Adam was turned out of paradise, all the animals shunned

him, and he sat bitterly weeping with his head between his hands, when

he felt the soft tongue of some creature gently touching him. He took

his hands from his face, and there was a dog that had separated himself

from all the other animals, and was trying to comfort him. He became the

chosen friend and companion of Adam, afterward of all men."

 

"There is another legend," said Mr. Harry, "about our Saviour and a dog.

Have you ever heard it?"

 

"We'll tell you that later," said Mr. Maxwell, "when we know what it

is."

 

Mr. Harry showed his white teeth in an amused smile, and began: "Once

upon a time our Lord was going through a town with his disciples. A dead

dog lay by the wayside, and every one that passed along flung some

offensive epithet at him. Eastern dogs are not like our dogs, and

seemingly there was nothing good about this loathsome creature, but as

our Saviour