Beautiful Joe (2 page)

I have
said that Jenkins spent most of his days in idleness. He had to start out very
early in the morning, in order to supply his customers with milk for breakfast.
Oh, how ugly he used to be, when he came into the stable on cold winter
mornings, before the sun was up.

He would
hang his lantern on a hook, and get his milking stool, and if the cows did not
step aside just to suit him, he would seize a broom or fork, and beat them
cruelly.

My mother
and I slept on a heap of straw in the corner of the stable, and when she heard
his step in the morning she always roused me, so that we could run outdoors as
soon as he opened the stable door. He always aimed a kick at us as we passed,
but my mother taught me how to dodge him.

After he
finished milking, he took the pails of milk up to the house for Mrs. Jenkins to
strain and put in the cans, and he came back and harnessed his horse to the
cart. His horse was called Toby, and a poor, miserable, broken-down creature he
was. He was weak in the knees, and weak in the back, and weak all over, and
Jenkins had to beat him all the time, to make him go. He had been a cab horse,
and his mouth had been jerked, and twisted, and sawed at, till one would think
there could be no feeling left in it; still I have seen him wince and curl up
his lip when Jenkins thrust in the frosty bit on a winter’s morning.

Poor old
Toby! I used to lie on my straw sometimes and wonder he did not cry out with
pain. Cold and half-starved he always was in the winter time, and often with
raw sores on his body that Jenkins would try to hide by putting bits of cloth
under the harness. But Toby never murmured, and he never tried to kick and
bite, and he minded the least word from Jenkins, and if he swore at him Toby
would start back, or step up quickly, he was so anxious to please him.

After
Jenkins put him in the cart, and took in the cans, he set out on his rounds. My
mother, whose name was Jess, always went with him. I used to ask her why she
followed such a brute of a man, and she would hang her head, and say that
sometimes she got a bone from the different houses they stopped at. But that
was not the whole reason. She liked Jenkins so much, that she wanted to be with
him.

I had not
her sweet and patient disposition, and I would not go with her. I watched her
out of sight, and then ran up to the house to see if Mrs. Jenkins had any
scraps for me. I nearly always got something, for she pitied me, and often gave
me a kind word or look with the bits of food that she threw to me.

When
Jenkins come home, I often coaxed mother to run about and see some of the
neighbors’ dogs with me. But she never would, and I would not leave her. So,
from morning to night we had to sneak about, keeping out of Jenkins’ way as
much as we could, and yet trying to keep him in sight. He always sauntered
about with a pipe in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, growling first at
his wife and children, and then at his dumb creatures.

I have not
told what became of my brothers and sisters. One rainy day, when we were eight
weeks old, Jenkins, followed by two or three of his ragged, dirty children,
came into the stable and looked at us. Then he began to swear because we were
so ugly, and said if we had been good-looking, he might have sold some of us.
Mother watched him anxiously, and fearing some danger to her puppies, ran and
jumped in the middle of us, and looked pleadingly up at him.

It only
made him swear the more. He took one pup after another, and right there, before
his children and my poor distracted mother, put an end to their lives. Some of
them he seized by the legs and knocked against the stalls, till their brains
were dashed out, others he killed with a fork. It was very terrible. My mother
ran up and down the stable, screaming with pain, and I lay weak and trembling,
and expecting every instant that my turn would come next. I don’t know why he
spared me. I was the only one left.

His
children cried, and he sent them out of the stable and went out himself. Mother
picked up all the puppies and brought them to our nest in the straw and licked
them, and tried to bring them back to life; but it was of no use, they were
quite dead. We had them in our corner of the stable for some days, till Jenkins
discovered them, and swearing horribly at us, he took his stable fork and threw
them out in the yard, and put some earth over them.

My mother
never seemed the same after this. She was weak and miserable, and though she
was only four years old, she seemed like an old dog. This was on account of the
poor food she had been fed on. She could not run after Jenkins, and she lay on
our heap of straw, only turning over with her nose the scraps of food I brought
her to eat. One day she licked me gently, wagged her tail, and died.

As I sat
by her, feeling lonely and miserable. Jenkins came into the stable. I could not
bear to look at him. He had killed my mother. There she lay, a little, gaunt,
scarred creature, starved and worried to death by him. Her mouth was half open,
her eyes were staring. She would never again look kindly at me, or curl up to
me at night to keep me warm. Oh, how I hated her murderer! But I sat quietly,
even when he went up and turned her over with his foot to see if she was really
dead. I think he was a little sorry, for he turned scornfully toward me and
said, “She was worth two of you; why didn’t you go instead?”

Still I
kept quiet till he walked up to me and kicked at me. My heart was nearly
broken, and I could stand no more. I flew at him and gave him a savage bite on
the ankle.

“Oho,” he
said, “so you are going to be a fighter, are you? I’ll fix you for that.” His
face was red and furious. He seized me by the back of the neck and carried me
out to the yard where a log lay on the ground. “Bill,” he called to one of his
children, “bring me the hatchet.”

He laid my
head on the log and pressed one hand on my struggling body. I was now a year
old and a full-sized dog. There was a quick, dreadful pain, and he had cut off
my ear, not in the way they cut puppies’ ears, but close to my head, so close
that he cut off some of the skin beyond it. Then he cut off the other ear, and,
turning me swiftly round, cut off my tail close to my body.

Then he
let me go and stood looking at me as I rolled on the ground and yelped in
agony. He was in such a passion that he did not think that people passing by on
the road might hear me.

There was
a young man going by on a bicycle. He heard my screams, and springing off his
bicycle, came hurrying up the path, and stood among us before Jenkins caught
sight of him.

In the
midst of my pain, I heard him say fiercely, “What have you been doing to that
dog?”

“I’ve been
cuttin’ his ears for fightin’, my young gentleman,” said Jenkins. “There is no
law to prevent that, is there?”

“And there
is no law to prevent my giving you a beating,” said the young man angrily. In a
trice he had seized Jenkins by the throat and was pounding him with all his
might. Mrs. Jenkins came and stood at the house door crying, but making no
effort to help her husband.

“Bring me
a towel,” the young man cried to her, after he had stretched Jenkins, bruised
and frightened, on the ground. She snatched off her apron and ran down with it,
and the young man wrapped me in it, and taking me carefully in his arms, walked
down the path to the gate. There were some little boys standing there, watching
him, their mouths wide open with astonishment. “Sonny,” he said to the largest
of them, “if you will come behind and carry this dog, I will give you a
quarter.”

The boy
took me, and we set out. I was all smothered up in a cloth, and moaning with
pain, but still I looked out occasionally to see which way we were going. We
took the road to the town and stopped in front of a house on Washington Street.
The young man leaned his bicycle up against the house, took a quarter from his
pocket and put it in the boy’s hand, and lifting me gently in his arms, went up
a lane leading to the back of the house.

There was
a small stable there. He went into it, put me down on the floor and uncovered
my body. Some boys were playing about the stable, and I heard them say, in
horrified tones, “Oh, Cousin Harry, what is the matter with that dog?”

“Hush,” he
said. “Don’t make a fuss. You, Jack, go down to the kitchen and ask Mary for a
basin of warm water and a sponge, and don’t let your mother or Laura hear you.”

A few
minutes later, the young man had bathed my bleeding ears and tail, and had
rubbed something on them that was cool and pleasant, and had bandaged them
firmly with strips of cotton. I felt much better and was able to look about me.

I was in a
small stable, that was evidently not used for a stable, but more for a
playroom. There were various kinds of toys scattered about, and a swing and
bar, such as boys love to twist about on; in two different corners. In a box
against the wall was a guinea pig, looking at me in an interested way. This
guinea pig’s name was Jeff, and he and I became good friends. A long-haired
French rabbit was hopping about, and a tame white rat was perched on the
shoulder of one of the boys, and kept his foothold there, no matter how
suddenly the boy moved. There were so many boys, and the stable was so small,
that I suppose he was afraid he would get stepped on if he went on the floor.
He stared hard at me with his little, red eyes, and never even glanced at a queer-looking,
gray cat that was watching me, too, from her bed in the back of the vacant
horse stall. Out in the sunny yard, some pigeons were pecking at grain, and a
spaniel lay asleep by the fence.

I had
never seen anything like this before, and my wonder at it almost drove the pain
away. Mother and I always chased rats and birds, and once we killed a kitten.
While I was puzzling over it, one of the boys cried out, “Here is Laura!”

“Take that
rag out of the way,” said Mr. Harry, kicking aside the old apron I had been
wrapped in, and that was stained with my blood. One of the boys stuffed it into
a barrel, and then they all looked toward the house.

A young
girl, holding up one hand to shade her eyes from the sun, was coming up the
walk that led from the house to the stable. I thought then that I never had
seen such a beautiful girl, and I think so still. She was tall and slender, and
had lovely brown eyes and brown hair, and a sweet smile, and just to look at
her was enough to make one love her. I stood in the stable door, staring at her
with all my might.

“Why, what
a funny dog,” she said, and stopped short to looked at me. Up to this, I had
not thought what a queer-looking sight I must be. Now I twisted round my head,
saw the white bandage on my tail, and knowing I was not a fit spectacle for a
pretty young lady like that, I slunk into a corner.

“Poor
doggie, have I hurt your feelings?” she said, and with a sweet smile at the
boys, she passed by them and came up to the guinea pig’s box, behind which I
had taken refuge. “What is the matter with your head, good dog?” she said,
curiously, as she stooped over me.

“He has a
cold in it,” said one of the boys with a laugh; “so we put a nightcap on.” She
drew back, and turned very pale. “Cousin Harry, there are drops of blood on
this cotton. Who has hurt this dog?”

“Dear
Laura,” and the young man coming up, laid his hand on her shoulder, “he got
hurt, and I have been bandaging him.”

“Who hurt
him?”

“I had
rather not tell you.”

“But I
wish to know.” Her voice was as gentle as ever, but she spoke so decidedly that
the young man was obliged to tell her everything. All the time he was speaking,
she kept touching me gently with her fingers. When he had finished his account
of rescuing me from Jenkins, she said, quietly:

“You will
have the man punished?”

“What is
the use? That won’t stop him from being cruel.”

“It will
put a check on his cruelty.”

“I don’t
think it would do any good,” said the young man, doggedly.

“Cousin Harry!”
and the young girl stood up very straight and tall, her brown eyes flashing,
and one hand pointing at me; “will you let that pass? That animal has been
wronged, it looks to you to right it. The coward who has maimed it for life
should be punished. A child has a voice to tell its wrong a poor, dumb creature
must suffer in silence; in bitter, bitter silence. And,” eagerly, as the young
man tried to interrupt her, “you are doing the man himself an injustice. If he
is bad enough to ill-treat his dog, he will ill-treat his wife and children. If
he is checked and punished now for his cruelty, he may reform. And even if his
wicked heart is not changed, he will be obliged to treat them with outward
kindness, through fear of punishment.”

The young
man looked convinced, and almost as ashamed as if he had been the one to crop
my ears. “What do you want me to do?” he said, slowly, and looking sheepishly
at the boys who were staring open-mouthed at him and the young girl.

The girl
pulled a little watch from her belt. “I want you to report that man
immediately. It is now five o’clock. I will go down to the police station with
you, if you like.”

“Very
well,” he said, his face brightening, and together they went off to the house.

The boys
watched them out of sight, then one of them, whose name I afterward learned was
Jack, and who came next to Miss Laura in age, gave a low whistle and said, “Doesn’t
the old lady come out strong when anyone or anything gets abused? I’ll never
forget the day she found me setting Jim on that black cat of the Wilsons. She
scolded me, and then she cried, till I didn’t know where to look. Plague on it,
how was I going to know he’d kill the old cat? I only wanted to drive it out of
the yard. Come on, let’s look at the dog.”

They all
came and bent over me, as I lay on the floor in my corner. I wasn’t much used
to boys, and I didn’t know how they would treat me. But I soon found by the way
they handled me and talked to me, that they knew a good deal about dogs, and
were accustomed to treat them kindly. It seemed very strange to have them pat
me, and call me “good dog.” No one had ever said that to me before today.

“He’s not
much of a beauty, is he?” said one of the boys, whom they called Tom.

“Not by a
long shot,” said Jack Morris, with a laugh. “Not any nearer the beauty mark
than yourself, Tom.”

Tom flew
at him, and they had a scuffle. The other boys paid no attention to them, but
went on looking at me. One of them, a little boy with eyes like Miss Laura’s,
said, “What did Cousin Harry say the dog’s name was?”

“Joe,”
answered another boy. “The little chap that carried him home told him.”

“We might
call him ‘Ugly Joe’ then,” said a lad with a round, fat face, and laughing
eyes. I wondered very much who this boy was, and, later on, I found out that he
was another of Miss Laura’s brothers, and his name was Ned. There seemed to be
no end to the Morris boys.

“I don’t
think Laura would like that,” said Jack Morris, suddenly coming up behind him.
He was very hot, and was breathing fast, but his manner was as cool as if he
had never left the group about me. He had beaten Tom, who was sitting on a box,
ruefully surveying a hole in his jacket. “You see,” he went on, gaspingly, “if
you call him ‘Ugly Joe,’ her ladyship will say that you are wounding the dear
dog’s feelings. ‘Beautiful Joe,’ would be more to her liking.”

A shout
went up from the boys. I didn’t wonder that they laughed. Plain-looking I
naturally was; but I must have been hideous in those bandages.

“‘Beautiful
Joe,’ then let it be!” they cried, “Let us go and tell mother, and ask her to
give us something for our beauty to eat.”

They all
trooped out of the stable, and I was very sorry, for when they were with me, I did
not mind so much the tingling in my ears, and the terrible pain in my back.
They soon brought me some nice food, but I could not touch it, so they went
away to their play, and I lay in the box they put me in, trembling with pain,
and wishing that the pretty young lady was there, to stroke me with her gentle
fingers.

By-and-by
it got dark. The boys finished their play, and went into the house, and I saw
lights twinkling in the windows. I felt lonely and miserable in this strange
place. I would not have gone back to Jenkins’ for the world, still it was the
only home I had known, and though I felt that I should be happy here, I had not
yet gotten used to the change. Then the pain all through my body was dreadful.
My head seemed to be on fire, and there were sharp, darting pains up and down
my backbone. I did not dare to howl, lest I should make the big dog, Jim,
angry. He was sleeping in a kennel, out in the yard.

The stable
was very quiet. Up in the loft above, some rabbits that I had heard running
about had now gone to sleep. The guinea pig was nestling in the corner of his
box, and the cat and the tame rat had scampered into the house long ago.

At last I
could bear the pain no longer. I sat up in my box and looked about me. I felt
as if I was going to die, and, though I was very weak, there was something
inside me that made me feel as if I wanted to crawl away somewhere out of
sight. I slunk out into the yard, and along the stable wall, where there was a
thick clump of raspberry bushes. I crept in among them and lay down in the damp
earth. I tried to scratch off my bandages, but they were fastened on too
firmly, and I could not do it. I thought about my poor mother, and wished she
was here to lick my sore ears. Though she was so unhappy herself, she never
wanted to see me suffer. If I had not disobeyed her, I would not now be
suffering so much pain. She had told me again and again not to snap at Jenkins,
for it made him worse.

In the
midst of my trouble I heard a soft voice calling, “Joe! Joe!” It was Miss Laura’s
voice, but I felt as if there were weights on my paws, and I could not go to
her.

“Joe! Joe!”
she said, again. She was going up the walk to the stable, holding up a lighted
lamp in her hand. She had on a white dress, and I watched her till she disappeared
in the stable. She did not stay long in there. She came out and stood on the
gravel. “Joe, Joe, Beautiful Joe, where are you? You are hiding somewhere, but
I shall find you.” Then she came right to the spot where I was. “Poor doggie,”
she said, stooping down and patting me. “Are you very miserable, and did you
crawl away to die? I have had dogs do that before, but I am not going to let
you die, Joe.” And she set her lamp on the ground, and took me in her arms.

I was very
thin then, not nearly so fat as I am now, still I was quite an armful for her.
But she did not seem to find me heavy. She took me right into the house,
through the back door, and down a long flight of steps, across a hall, and into
a snug kitchen.

“For the
land sakes, Miss Laura,” said a woman who was bending over a stove, “what have
you got there?”

“A poor
sick dog, Mary,” said Miss Laura seating herself on a chair. “Will you please
warm a little milk for him? And have you a box or a basket down here that he
can lie in?”

“I guess
so,” said the woman; “but he’s awful dirty; you’re not going to let him sleep
in the house, are you?”

“Only for tonight.
He is very ill. A dreadful thing happened to him, Mary.” And Miss Laura went on
to tell her how my ears had been cut off.

“Oh, that’s
the dog the boys were talking about,” said the woman. “Poor creature, he’s
welcome to all I can do for him.” She opened a closet door, and brought out a
box, and folded a piece of blanket for me to lie on. Then she heated some milk
in a saucepan, and poured it in a saucer, and watched me while Miss Laura went
upstairs to get a little bottle of something that would make me sleep. They
poured a few drops of this medicine into the milk and offered it to me. I
lapped a little, but I could not finish it, even though Miss Laura coaxed me
very gently to do so. She dipped her finger in the milk and held it out to me
and though I did not want it, I could not be ungrateful enough to refuse to
lick her finger as often as she offered it to me. After the milk was gone, Mary
lifted up my box, and carried me into the washroom that was off the kitchen.

I soon
fell sound asleep, and could not rouse myself through the night, even though I
both smelled and heard someone coming near me several times. The next morning I
found out that it was Miss Laura. Whenever there was a sick animal in the
house, no matter if it was only the tame rat, she would get up two or three
times in the night, to see if there was anything she could do to make it more
comfortable.