That morning my master stopped first at a farmhouse where everything
betokened plenty, but not thrift. A man was slopping hogs. The latter
were in a small inclosure, wading in mud almost up to their bodies. How
hungry they seemed, and how vigorously he dealt blows right and left,
with a club he carried!
The low troughs were one-third full of mud, and into these he poured the
swill.
"Dear me," I thought, "they can never eat it," but they did; that is,
some of them. A few of the weaker ones were crowded back and got
nothing.
Often in passing that place in winter, I have noticed that in feeding
cattle, the fodder was thrown on the ground to be pawed over, stamped
in, and the greater part of it wasted. The cattle here were thin-looking
in the spring, with apparently no ambition but to find a tree or rail
against which to rub. I was not surprised when I heard that that man had
mortgaged his farm.
Toward noon of the day first mentioned we drove into a farmyard where a
boy unhitched me and turned me into a nice pasture. There were several
horses and cows beside. One of the latter ran ceaselessly from side to
side of the inclosure, calling piteously. No need to inquire her
trouble; one look into her dark, pleading eyes and any one could
recognize a sorrowing mother. One of the horses told me that it had been
just that way for almost a week; that day and night it was the same.
Said he: "She has not eaten a mouthful since her little one disappeared.
You see they let it run with her until it was seven or eight weeks old.
She was so proud of it; and an uncommonly cunning calf it was. They were
always together; but one day some men came and drove it away and she has
been almost crazy ever since."
Just then the poor animal passed near us in the endless circuit, and
such a look of agony and entreaty as she wore! Presently a man came to
the bars; straight she rushed toward him, bellowing piteously. Of
course, he passed indifferently by, and then, turning, she walked to a
little clump of trees.
"See!" said my companion; "she will stop under that oak at this corner;
there is where she used often to lie with the calf." And sure enough she
paused there, smelling the ground over and calling in a low tone; then
down on her knees she went, laying the side of her face against the sod
and moaning and crying as any human mother would. Oh, it was pitiful,
pitiful!
"One has to stand a good deal like that in this world," the big roan
said, turning his face away, "and yet people think we dumb creatures
have no feeling. I wish we hadn't. A while ago, the family let another
cow and calf run together in the same way, and then butchered the little
creature right before its mother's eyes. She has never been the same
since; doesn't eat, and her milk isn't good. Poisoned with the grief and
fretting, but the folks don't understand."
Another day I was grazing in the pasture of one of Master's patients,
when I noticed a cow standing in the shade of a tree contentedly chewing
her cud.
"A happy looking creature," I remarked to the old family horse, who was
quietly grazing away his days.
"Yes," he said, with a smile. And right here let me say horses do smile.
"She thinks her calf is over on the other side of that high board fence,
in the calf pasture, while in reality it was sold a week ago. You see
our master is a merciful man; he separates the mothers from their young
almost from the first. For a while he lets the calf through a door in
the wall, to its mother, three or four times a day, then twice, and
finally not at all; but all the while each is content, because they
believe the other is right there. The cow is not worried, and gives down
her milk bountifully; the calf is content and thrives. My master is not
only merciful, but shrewd."
"And you seem to have an easy time," I suggested.
"Easy, to be sure. He says I have done hard work enough to retire, and
have earned money enough for him that he can afford to keep me on the
interest of it."
One event of interest, to part at least of the Wallace family, I have
not mentioned. It was when we had been at M---- about a year. Grim had
been down street with the boys, and on reaching the gateway of home he
fell in a fit. Master and I had just driven up. Mrs. Wallace, from the
piazza, gave a cry and began to scream, "Mad dog." Poor Grim, coming out
of it, rolled his eyes piteously from one to another. With a desperate
struggle he regained his feet and attempted to walk, but his back gave
way and before the doctor could reach Grim he lay writhing in another
spasm. Mrs. Wallace screamed the louder from a safe place inside the
door; and Master, speaking rougher than I ever heard him speak to her
before, bade her be still, adding that the poor fellow had been
poisoned.
"Bring me a bottle of sweet oil from the office," he commanded Park,
"and be quick about it."
Grim was coming out of the fourth fit when the oil came, and among them
they managed to pour a gill or so down his throat. He had ever so many
more spasms, but finally got better; that is, he did not die then, but
never got well; just pined away and finally died.
By this means we became aware that M---- had a cat and dog poisoner; "a
man too mean to live and too wicked to die," the neighbors said of him.
Many handsomer and more valuable dogs than dear old Grim fell a victim
to his rascality, but few were more sincerely mourned. So officious was
this individual that it was nothing uncommon to see little girls bending
their curly heads over pet kittens stiff as death, or ladies wringing
their hands in agony over the sufferings of some canine or feline pet.
And the sufferings of the latter were terrible to witness.
But I have heard say that every town has one man in it so far lost to
human decency that he assumes the right to thus torture other people's
pets.
Master says there is nothing uncertain about the future of such men. I
don't quite know what he means, do you?
Minnie Winters professed to be "not over strong"--these were Mrs.
Wallace's words--and the latter frequently asked Dr. Dick to let her
sister go with us when we were out for short drives. He could hardly
refuse. Of course, I heard every word of their conversations and
noticed how commonplace all the doctor's remarks were, and how adroitly
he parried all sentimental or even personal allusion on his companion's
part; but nevertheless I was uneasy. I did not think so badly of Minnie,
but Mrs. Wallace I believed capable of any treachery.
After a while I remarked that all the men and boys about the livery
stable smiled significantly when my master came in; and by and by, when
he was out, I heard them saying among themselves that he was going to
marry Miss Winters.
Remembering the past as I did, I was sure they were mistaken; but still
the way Dr. Fred had done had somewhat shaken my confidence in men.
Indeed, I worried not a little, and one day when my master announced
that he was going to Chicago for some weeks, I could not decide whether
the move meant bad or ill. The last thing before starting he caressed me
and whispered loving words in my ear. Surely he could not do that, I
thought, if he were untrue.
It seemed a different world to me when he was gone. Mrs. Wallace and her
sister used me continually, and I had no idea that women could be such
merciless creatures.
They demanded that I trot all the time, up hill and down, and then kept
up a continual nagging that made me quite frantic. My mouth was all sore
and chafed from the ceaseless jerking and slashing of my back with the
lines; and, no matter how strictly I obeyed them, it was all wrong.
Part of the time they rode on my back. The saddle did not fit me, and
there was a rough place inside that wore a sore. Nobody noticed this,
though; in fact, I was scarcely curried or rubbed at all. Every time the
saddle went on my back I grew worse, until one day the pain became
unendurable and I ran away.
Think of me, Dandy, running away! I left Miss Minnie in a heap by a
roadside, but on I went, that wretched saddle tearing deeper into me
every moment.
Somebody saw me, and called out:
"Dr. Dick's Dandy running away, as I live!"
This seemed to bring me to my senses, and when they yelled, "Whoa," I
stopped. I was all of a tremble. They led me back till they came to
Minnie, crying by the roadside and rearranging her hair. At first she
refused to get into the saddle again, and I hoped she'd hold out, but
she didn't, and I had all I could do to keep from running again, her
weight hurt that sore so.
The next day we went again, with Park on Prince for escort. The saddle
hurt as badly as before--worse, I guess--and presently, when they
undertook a race, the torture was too much, and I reared, throwing my
lady off again. Park caught the bridle with a jerk that almost threw me
to the ground, and while I was recovering myself he slid from his horse.
Tying the latter by the roadside, he removed the saddle, and proceeded
to give me the dreadfulest whipping, with the whip he carried.
I had never been really whipped before in my life, and I scarcely know
which hurt me the worst, the lash or the injustice and humiliation;
probably the lash, though, for it cut mercilessly into the sore.
Suddenly Minnie screamed:
"Don't, don't, Park; just see the blood! Oh, what will the doctor say?"
But the young man was mad, I suppose; anyway he thrashed away until he
was tired.
Sobbing hysterically, Minnie wiped the blood from my back with her
handkerchief, and refused to mount again. They had a quarrel, but I was
too faint and sore to pay much attention.
And to think I could never tell my Master one word about it. That was
four days before he came home, and I was not out of the stable again.
Dr. Fred came in the morning after my whipping, examined my back and
swore frightfully. Said he'd a notion to horsewhip Park, and promised
him his dismissal when Master came home. It all tended to make the
fellow ugly, and every one of the Wallace horses have cause to remember
those four days. They seemed a veritable reign of terror.
All the while he was putting something on my back that smarted it
dreadfully.
Of course, Dr. Dick visited my stall the first thing. I laid my head on
his shoulder and could have cried with relief. The moment he moved away
I would recall him with a whinny, and he finally led me out with his own
hands for some water.
That spot on my back was the first thing to catch his eye in the perfect
light, but Park was ready with a plausible story about Minnie trying a
side-saddle on me "just because I needed exercise," and it rubbed my
back.
That was all. I never heard any more about it, except that Master pitied
and petted me even more than before. Thinking of the thousands upon
thousands of poor creatures that are abused much worse every day, and
never receive a kind word or pat, I felt that my lines were cast in
pleasant places.
Anyway I never heard any more about Master marrying Miss Winters, and
after awhile she went away.
Just prior to this last event, she and Mrs. Wallace drove out with me,
and I heard the former say: "I hate Dandy, I believe I am jealous of
him."
Such a pretty dapple gray was brought into the barn one night, her back
one mass of ridges made by a whip.
"What a shame!" one of the stable men said, "and she's a willing piece
of horseflesh too."
"Yes," said another, "but some fellows think it looks big to whip like
that; shows their power and importance."
"Shows they're ---- fools!"