MR. WOOD had a dozen calves that he was raising, and Miss Laura
sometimes went up to the stable to see them. Each calf was in a crib,
and it was fed with milk. They had gentle, patient faces, and beautiful
eyes, and looked very meek, as they stood quietly gazing about them, or
sucking away at their milk. They reminded me of big, gentle dogs.
I never got a very good look at them in their cribs, but one day when
they were old enough to be let out, I went up with Miss Laura to the
yard where they were kept. Such queer, ungainly, large-boned creatures
they were, and such a good time they were having, running and jumping
and throwing up their heels.
Mrs. Wood was with us, and she said that it was not good for calves to
be closely penned after they got to be a few weeks old. They were better
for getting out and having a frolic. She stood beside Miss Laura for
a long time, watching the calves, and laughing a great deal at their
awkward gambols. They wanted to play, but they did not seem to know how
to use their limbs.
They were lean calves, and Miss Laura asked her aunt why all the nice
milk they had taken had not made them fat. “The fat will come all in
good time,” said Mrs. Wood. “A fat calf makes a poor cow, and a fat,
small calf isn't profitable to fit for sending to the butcher. It's
better to have a bony one and fatten it. If you come here next summer,
you'll see a fine show of young cattle, with fat sides, and big,
open horns, and a good coat of hair. Can you imagine,” she went on,
indignantly, “that any one could be cruel enough to torture such a
harmless creature as a calf?”
“No, indeed,” replied Miss Laura. “Who has been doing it?”
“Who has been doing it?” repeated Mrs. Wood, bitterly; “they are doing
it all the time. Do you know what makes the nice, white veal one gets
in big cities? The calves are bled to death. They linger for hours, and
moan their lives away. The first time I heard it, I was so angry that
I cried for a day, and made John promise that he'd never send another
animal of his to a big city to be killed. That's why all of our stock
goes to Hoytville, and small country places. Oh, those big cities are
awful places, Laura. It seems to me that it makes people wicked to
huddle them together. I'd rather live in a desert than a city. There's
Ch o. Every night since I've been there I pray to the Lord either to
change the hearts of some of the wicked people in it, or to destroy them
off the face of the earth. You know three years ago I got run down,
and your uncle said I'd got to have a change, so he sent me off to my
brother's in Ch o. I stayed and enjoyed myself pretty well, for it is
a wonderful city, till one day some Western men came in, who had been
visiting the slaughter houses outside the city. I sat and listened to
their talk, and it seemed to me that I was hearing the description of a
great battle. These men were cattle dealers, and had been sending stock
to Ch o, and they were furious that men, in their rage for wealth, would
so utterly ignore and trample on all decent and humane feelings as to
torture animals as the Ch o men were doing.
“It is too dreadful to repeat the sights they saw. I listened till they
were describing Texan steers kicking in agony under the torture that was
practised, and then I gave a loud scream, and fainted dead away. They
had to send for your uncle, and he brought me home, and for days and
days I heard nothing but shouting and swearing, and saw animals dripping
with blood, and crying and moaning in their anguish, and now, Laura, if
you'd lay down a bit of Ch o meat, and cover it with gold, I'd spurn it
from me. But what am I saying? you're as white as a sheet. Come and see
the cow stable. John's just had it whitewashed.”
Miss Laura took her aunt's arm, and I walked slowly behind them. The cow
stable was a long building, well-built, and with no chinks in the walls,
as Jenkins's stable had. There were large windows where the afternoon
sun came streaming in, and a number of ventilators, and a great many
stalls. A pipe of water ran through the stalls from one end of the
stable to the other. The floor was covered with sawdust and leaves, and
the ceiling and tops of the walls were whitewashed. Mrs. Wood said that
her husband would not have the walls a glare of white right down to the
floor, because he thought it injured the animals' eyes. So the lower
parts of the walls were stained a dark, brown color.
There were doors at each end of the stable, and just now they stood
open, and a gentle breeze was blowing through, but Mrs. Wood said that
when the cattle stood in the stalls, both doors were never allowed to
be open at the same time. Mr. Wood was most particular to have no drafts
blowing upon his cattle. He would not have them chilled, and he would
not have them overheated. One thing was as bad as the other. And during
the winter they were never allowed to drink icy water. He took the chill
off the water for his cows, just as Mrs. Wood did for her hens.
“You know, Laura,” Mrs. Wood went on, “that when cows are kept dry
and warm, they eat less than when they are cold and wet. They are so
warm-blooded that if they are cold, they have to eat a great deal to
keep up the heat of their bodies, so it pays better to house and feed
them well. They like quiet, too. I never knew that till I married your
uncle. On our farm, the boys always shouted and screamed at the cows
when they were driving them, and sometimes they made them run. They're
never allowed to do that here.”
“I have noticed how quiet this farm seems,” said Miss Laura. “You have
so many men about, and yet there is so little noise.”
“Your uncle whistles a great deal,” said Mrs. Wood. “Have you noticed
that? He whistles when he's about his work, and then he has a calling
whistle that nearly all of the animals know, and the men run when
they hear it. You'd see every cow in this stable turn its head, if he
whistled in a certain way outside. He says that he got into the way of
doing it when he was a boy and went for his father's cows. He trained
them so that he'd just stand in the pasture and whistle, and they'd come
to him. I believe the first thing that inclined me to him was his
clear, happy whistle. I'd hear him from our house away down on the road,
jogging along with his cart, or driving in his buggy. He says there is
no need of screaming at any animal. It only frightens and angers them.
They will mind much better if you speak clearly and distinctly. He says
there is only one thing an animal hates more than to be shouted at, and
that's to be crept on to have a person sneak up to it and startle it.
John says many a man is kicked, because he comes up to his horse like
a thief. A startled animal's first instinct is to defend itself. A dog
will spring at you, and a horse will let his heels fly. John always
speaks or whistles to let the stock know when he's approaching.”
“Where is uncle this afternoon?” asked Miss Laura.
“Oh, up to his eyes in hay. He's even got one of the oxen harnessed to a
hay cart.”
“I wonder whether it's Duke?” said Miss Laura.
“Yes, it is. I saw the star on his forehead,” replied Mrs. Wood.
“I don't know when I have laughed at anything as much as I did at him
the other day,” said Miss Laura. “Uncle asked me if I had ever heard
of such a thing as a jealous ox, and I said no. He said, 'Come to the
barnyard, and I'll show you one.' The oxen were both there, Duke with
his broad face, and Bright so much sharper and more intelligent looking.
Duke was drinking at the trough there, and uncle said: 'Just look at
him. Isn't he a great, fat, self-satisfied creature, and doesn't he look
as if he thought the world owed him a living, and he ought to get it?'
Then he got the card and went up to Bright, and began scratching him.
Duke lifted his head from the trough, and stared at uncle, who paid no
attention to him but went on carding Bright, and stroking and petting
him. Duke looked so angry. He left the trough, and with the water
dripping from his lips, went up to uncle, and gave him a push with his
horns. Still uncle took no notice, and Duke almost pushed him over. Then
uncle left off petting Bright, and turned to him. He said Duke would
have treated him roughly, if he hadn't. I never saw a creature look as
satisfied as Duke did, when uncle began to card him. Bright didn't seem
to care, and only gazed calmly at them.”
“I've seen Duke do that again and again,” said Mrs. Wood. “He's the most
jealous animal that we have, and it makes him perfectly miserable
to have your uncle pay attention to any animal but him. What queer
creatures these dumb brutes are. They're pretty much like us in most
ways. They're jealous and resentful, and they can love or hate equally
well and forgive, too, for that matter; and suffer how they can suffer,
and so patiently, too. Where is the human being that would put up with
the tortures that animals endure and yet come out so patient?”
“Nowhere,” said Miss Laura, in a low voice “we couldn't do it.”
“And there doesn't seem to be an animal,” Mrs. Wood went on, “no matter
how ugly and repulsive it is, but what has some lovable qualities. I
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 sending all round the
barnyard robed in white.”