Beautiful Joe: the autobiography of a dog ... New edition

Preface

. Beautiful Joe is a real dog, and " Beautiful Joe " is his real name. He belonged during the first part of his life to a cruel master, who mutilated him in the manner described in the story. He was rescued from him, and is now living in a happy home with pleasant surround ings, and enjoys a wide local celebrity. The character of Laura is drawn from life, and to the smallest detail is truthfully depicted. The Morris family has its counterparts in real life, and nearly all of the incidents of the story are founded on fact. THE AUTHOR. (Extract from. Countess of Aberdeen's Letter on the Canadian Edition. J Government House, Ottawa, March 27th, 1894. Gentlemen It is with great pleasure that I learn Canadian edition of " Beauyou are about to publish a tiful Joe." I am sure that all lovers of animals will welcome this book with eagerness, as being eminently calculated to spread that knowledge of, and thought for dumb beasts, which will lead to their humane treatment.

So much of the cruelty which we see daily practised amongst us arises from want of thought. That the circulation of a book like " Beautiful Joe " — a worthy companion to the well-known "Black Beauty" — must do vast good in leading the young especially to understand their pets and their needs better. * * * # -.: * Yours faithfully, ISHBEL ABERDEEN.

Introduction

. The wonderfully successful book, entitled " Black Beauty," came like a living voice out of the animal kingdom. But it spake for the horse, and made other books necessary ; it led the way. After the ready welcome that it received, and the good it has accomplished and is doing, it followed naturally that some one should be inspired to write a book to interpret the life of a dog to the humane feeling of the world. Such a story we have in " Beautiful Joe." The story speaks not for the dog alone, but for the whole animal kingdom. Through it we enter the animal world, and are made to see as animals see, and to feel as animals feel. The sympathetic sight of the author, in this interpretation, is ethically the strong feature of the book. Such books as this is one of the needs of our progres sive system of education.

The Day-school, the Sunday school, and all libraries for the young, demand the influence that shall teach the reader how to live in sympathy with the animal world ; how to understand the languages of the creatures that we have long been accustomed to call " dumb," and the sign language of the lower orders of these dependent beings. The Church owes it to her mission to preach and to teach the enforcement of the

INTRODUCTION.

. ''bird's nest commandment"; the principle recognized by Moses in the Hebrew world, and echoed by Cowper in English poetry, and Burns in the "Meadow Mouse," and by Longfellow in songs of many keys. Kindness to the Animal Kingdom is the first, or a first principle in the growth of true philanthropy. Young Lincoln once waded across a half-frozen river to rescue a dog, and stopped in a walk with a statesman to put back a bird that had fallen out of its nest. Such a heart was trained to be a leader of men, and to be crucified for a cause. The conscience that runs, to the call of an animal in distress, is girding itself with power to do manly work in the world. The story of "Beautiful Joe" awakens an intense interest, and sustains it through a series of vivid incidents and episodes, each of which is a lesson.

The story merits the widest circulation, and the universal reading and response accorded to " Black Beauty." To circulate it is to do good ; to help the human heart as well as the creatures of quick feelings and simple language. The book comes because it is called for; the times demand it. I thiuk that the publishers have a right to ask for a little unselfish service on the part of the public in helping to give it a circulation commensurate with its opportunity, need, and influence. Hezekiah Butterworth. Boston Humane Society. CONTENTS. Chaptes FABB I. Onlt a Cur 13 II. The Cruel Milkman 19 III. Mt Kind Deliverer and Miss Laura 24 IV. The Morris Boys Add to Mt Name 29 V. Mt New Home and a Selfish Ladt . . 34 VI. The Fox Terrier Billt 46 VII. Training a Puppt 53 VIII. A Ruined Doo 67 IX. The Parrot Bella 62 X. Billt's Training Continued 69 XI.

Goldfish and Canaries 76 XII. Malta the Cat 86 XIII. The Beginning of an Adventure . . 93 XIV. How We Caught the Burglar .... 103 XV. Our Journey to Riverdale 113 XVI. Dinolet Farm CONTENTS. Chapter Pao* XVII. Mr. "Wood and his Horses 130 XVIII. Mrs. Wood's Poultrt 137 XIX. A Band of Mercy 143 XX. Stories About Animals 151 XXI. Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Harrt .... 164 XXII. What Happened at the Tea Table . . 171 XXIII. Trapping Wild Animals 178 XXIV. The Rabbit and the Hen 187 XXV. A Happt Horse 196 XXVI. The Box of Monet 205 XXVII. A Neglected Stable 214 XXVIII. The End of the Englishman 223 XXIX. A Talk About Sheep 231 XXX A Jealous Ox 242 XXXI. In the Cow Stable . . 250 XXXII. Our Return Home 257 XXXIII Performing Animals 266 XXXIV. A Fire in Fairport 276 XXXV. Billy and the Italian 282 XXXVI. Dandy the Tramp 287 XXXVII. The End of Mt Story

Chapter I. Only

A CUR. §!_t£_N name ls Beautiful Joe, and I am a brown dog 0 M H °^ medium size. I am not called Beautiful Joe irrWTtnJI because I am a beauty. Mr. Morris, the cler gyman, in whose family I have lived for the last twelve years, says that he thinks I must be called Beautiful Joe for the same reason that his grandfather, down South, called a very ugly colored slave-lad Cupid, and his mother Venus. I do not know what he means by that, but when he says it, people always look at me and smile. I know that I am not beautiful, and I know that I am not a thoroughbred. I am only a cur. When my mistress went every year to register me and pay my tax, and the man in the office asked what breed I was, she said part fox-terrier and part bull-terrier ; but he always put me down a cur. I don't think she liked having him call me a cur ; still, I have heard her say that she preferred curs, for they have more character than wellbred dogs.

Her father said that she liked ugly dogs for the same reason that a nobleman at the court of a certain king did — namely, that no one else would. I am an old dog now, and am writing, or rather getting a friend to write, the story of my life. I have seen my mistress laughing and crying over a little book that she says is a story of a horse's life, and sometimes she puts the book down close to my nose to let me see the pictures. I love my dear mistress ; I can say no more than that ; I love her better than any one else in the world ; and I think it will please her if I write the story of a dog's life. She loves dumb animals, and it alway*s grieves her to see them treated cruelly. I have heard her say that if all the boys and girls in the world were to rise up and say that there should be no more cruelty to animals, they could put a stop to it. l'erhaps it will help a little if I tell a story.

I am fond of boys and girls, and though I have seen many cruel men and women, I have seen few cruel children. I think the more stories there are written about dumb animals, the better it will be for us. In telling my story, I think I had better begin at the first and come right on to the end. I was born in a stable on the outskirts of a small town in Maine called Fairport. The first thing I remember was lying close to my mother and being very snug and warm. The next thing I remember was being always hungry. I had a number of brothers and sisters — six in all — and my mother never had enough milk for us. She was always half starved herself, so she could not feed us properly. I am very unwilling to say much about my early life. I have lived so long in a family where there is never a harsh word spoken, and where no one thinks of ill-treat- ONLY A CUE. ing anybody or anything, that it seems almost wrong even to think or speak of such a matter as hurting a poor dumb beast.

The man that owned my mother was a milkman. He kept one horse and three cows, and he had a shaky old cart that he used to put his milk cans in. I don't think there can be a worse man in the world than that milk man. It makes me shudder now to think of him. His name was Jenkins, and I am glad to think that he is get ting punished now for his cruelty to poor dumb animals and to human beings. If you think it is wrong that I am glad, you must remember that I am only a dog. The first notice that he took of me when I was a little puppy, just able to stagger about, was to give me a kick that sent .me into a corner of the stable. He used to beat and starve my mother. I have seen him use his heavy whip to punish her till her body was covered with blood. W'hen I got older I asked her why she did not run away.

She said she did not wish to ; but I soon found out that the reason she did not run away, was because she loved Jenkins. Cruel and savage as he was, she yet loved him, and I believe she would have laid down her life for him. Now that I am old, I know that there are more men in the world like Jenkins. They are not crazy, they are not drunkards ; they simply seem to be possessed with a spirit of wickedness. There are well-to-do people, yes, and rich people, who will treat animals, and even little children, with such terrible cruelty, that one cannot even mention the things that they are guilty of. One reason for Jenkins' cruelty was his idleness. After he went his rounds in the morning with his milk cans, he had nothing to do till late in the afternoon but take care of his stable and yard. If he had kept them neat, and groomed his horse, and cleaned the cows, and dug up the garden, it would have taken up all his time ; but he never tidied the place at all, till his yard and stable got so littered up with things he threw down, that he could not make his way about.

His house and stable stood in the middle of a large field, and they were at some distance from the road. Passers-by could not see how untidy the place was. Occasionally, a man came to look at the premises, and see that they were in good order, but Jenkins always knew when to expect him, and had things cleaned up a little. I used to wish that some of the people that took milk from him would come and look at his cows. In the spring and summer he drove them out to pasture, but dur ing the winter they stood all the time in the dirty, dark stable, where the chinks in the wall were so big that the snow swept through almost in drifts. The ground was always muddy and wet; there was only one small win dow on the north side, where the sun only shone in for a short time in the afternoon. They were very unhappy cows, but they stood patiently and never complained, though sometimes I know they must have nearly frozen in the bitter winds that blew through the stable on winter nights.

They were lean and poor, and were never in good health. Besides being cold they were fed on very poor food. Jenkins used to come home nearly every afternoon with a great tub in the back of his cart that was full of what he called " peelings." It was kitchen stuff that he asked the cooks at the different houses where he delivered milk, to save for him. They threw rotten vegetables, fruit parings, and scraps from the table into a tub, and gave ONLY A CUR. 17 them to him at the end of a few days. A sour, nasty mess it always was, and not fit to give any creature. Sometimes, when he had not many " peelings," he would go to town and get a load of decayed vegetables, that grocers were glad to have him take off their hands. This food, together with poor hay, made the cows give very poor milk, and Jenkins used to put some white pow der in it, to give it " body," as he said.

Once a very sad thing happened about the milk, that no one knew about but Jenkins and his wife. She was a poor, unhappy creature, very frightened at her husband, and not daring to speak much to him. She was not a clean woman, and I never 6aw a worse-looking house than she kept. She used to do very queer things, that I know now no housekeeper should do. I have seen her catch up the broom to pound potatoes in the pot. She pounded with the handle, and the broom would fly up and down in the air, dropping dust into the pot where the potatoes were. Her pan of soft-mixed bread she often left uncovered in the kitchen, and sometimes the hens walked in and sat in it. The children used to play in mud puddles about the door. It was the youngest of them that sickened with some kind of fever early in the spring, before Jenkins be gan driving the cows out to pasture.

The child was very ill, and Mrs. Jenkins wanted to send for a doctor, but her husband would not let her. They made a bed in the kitchen, close to the stove, and Mrs. Jenkins nursed the child as best she could. She did all her work near by, and I saw her several times wiping the child's face with the cloth that she used for washing her milk pans. Nobody knew outside the family that the little girl was B ill. Jenkins had such a bad name, that none of the neighbors would visit them. By-and-by the child got well, and a week or two later Jenkins came home with quite a frightened face, and told his wife that the husband of one of his customers was very ill with typhoid fever Aster a time the gentleman died, and the cook told Jenkins that the doctor wondered how he could have taken the fever, for there was not a case in town.

There was a widow left with three orphans, and they never knew that they had to blame a dirty, careless milk man, for taking a kind husband and father from them.

Chapter II. The Cruel Milkman

R^'glj HAVE said that Jenkins spent most of his days SS 8« 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 milk ing 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 out-doors 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 IJ 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 aud cuil 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 wa3 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 osten gave me a kind word or look with the bits of food that she threw to me. When Jenkins came 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, keepinc out of Jenkins' way as much as we could, and yet trying THE CF.UEL MILKMAN. 21 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 ami 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 um, aud 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 ofthe 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 starin.'. 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 vou go instead." Still I kept auiet 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 aud furious. He seized me by the back of the neck and car ried me out to the yard where a log lav on the ground. " Bill," he called to one of his children, " brin-- 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, aud he had cut off my ear, not in the way they cut puppies' ears, but THE CRUEL MILKMAN. 23 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.

Chapter III. My Kind Deliverer And Miss Laura

jSsJlS HERE was a young man going by on a bicycle. |kew He heard mv screams, and springing off his l^___M 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 MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA. 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 AVashington 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 play room. 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 in a corner. I had never seen anything like this before, and my wonder at it almost drove the pain away.

Mother and I ahvays 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 eves 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 look at me.

Up to this, I had not thought what a queer-looking sight I must be. Now I twisted around mv 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, MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA. 27 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."