BEAUTIFUL JOE
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
BY MARSHALL SAUNDERS
Author of
"My Spanish Sailor,"
"Charles and His Lamb,"
"Daisy," etc.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
OF YOUTH'S COMPANION
1903
TO
GEORGE THORNDIKE ANGELL
PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE EDUCATION SOCIETY
THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION
OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, AND THE PARENT
AMERICAN BAND OF MERCY
19 MILK ST., BOSTON
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
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 surroundings, 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.
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 progressive 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 "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 our own 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.
When, as one of the committee to examine the manuscripts offered for
prizes to the Humane Society, I read the story, I felt that the writer
had a higher motive than to compete for a prize; that the story was a
stream of sympathy that flowed from the heart; that it was genuine; that
it only needed a publisher who should be able to command a wide
influence, to make its merits known, to give it a strong educational
mission.
I am pleased that the manuscript has found such a publisher, and am sure
that the issue of the story will honor the Publication Society. In the
development of the book, I believe that the humane cause has stood above
any speculative thought or interest. The book comes because it is called
for; the times demand it. I think 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.
(Of the committee of readers of the prize stories offered to the Humane
Society.)
BOSTON, MASS., Dec., 1893.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ONLY A CUR
II. THE CRUEL MILKMAN
III. MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA
IV. THE MORRIS BOYS ADD TO MY NAME
V. MY NEW HOME AND A SELFISH LADY
VI. THE FOX TERRIER BILLY
VII. TRAINING A PUPPY
VIII. A RUINED DOG
IX. THE PARROT BELLA
X. BILLY'S TRAINING CONTINUED
XI. GOLDFISH AND CANARIES
XII. MALTA THE CAT
XIII. THE BEGINNING OF AN ADVENTURE
XIV. HOW WE CAUGHT THE BURGLAR
XV. OUR JOURNEY TO RIVERDALE
XVI. DINGLEY FARM
XVII. MR. WOOD AND HIS HORSES
XVIII. MRS. WOOD'S POULTRY
XIX. A BAND OF MERCY
XX. STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS
XXI. MR. MAXWELL AND MR. HARRY
XXII. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TEA TABLE
XXIII. TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS
XXIV. THE RABBIT AND THE HEN
XXV. A HAPPY HORSE
XXVI. THE BOX OF MONEY
XXVII. A NEGLECTED STABLE
XXVIII. THE END OF THE ENGLISHMAN
XXIX. A TALK ABOUT SHEEP
XXX. A JEALOUS OX
XXXI. IN THE COW STABLE
XXXII. OUR RETURN HOME
XXXIII. PERFORMING ANIMALS
XXXIV. A FIRE IN FAIRPORT
XXXV. BILLY AND THE ITALIAN
XXXVI. DANDY THE TRAMP
XXXVII. THE END OF MY STORY
BEAUTIFUL JOE
CHAPTER I
ONLY A CUR
My name is Beautiful Joe, and I am a brown dog of medium size. I am not
called Beautiful Joe because I am a beauty. Mr. Morris, the clergyman,
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 well-bred 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 always
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. Perhaps 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-treating 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 milkman.
It makes me shudder now to think of him. His name was Jenkins, and I am
glad to think that he is getting 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. When
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 during 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 window 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 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 powder 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 saw 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 began 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 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.
After 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 milkman for taking a kind husband and
father from them.
* * * * *