Beautiful Joe

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Beautiful Joe

by Marshall Saunders

Beautiful Joe an Autobiography
By Marshall Saunders
With an Introduction
By Hezekiah Butterworth
Of Youth's Companion
Philadelphia

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 follows 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

CONTENTS

Chapter I. ONLY A CUR
Chapter II. THE CRUEL MILKMAN
Chapter III. MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA
Chapter IV. THE MORRIS BOYS ADD TO MY NAME
Chapter V. MY NEW HOME AND A SELFISH LADY
Chapter VI. THE FOX TERRIER BILLY
Chapter VII. TRAINING A PUPPY
Chapter VIII. A RUINED DOG
Chapter IX. THE PARROT BELLA
Chapter X. BILLY'S TRAINING CONTINUED
Chapter XI. GOLDFISH AND CANARIES
Chapter XII. MALTA THE CAT
Chapter XIII. THE BEGINNING OF AN ADVENTURE
Chapter XIV. HOW WE CAUGHT THE BURGLAR
Chapter XV. OUR JOURNEY TO RIVERDALE
Chapter XVI. DINGLEY FARM
Chapter XVII. MR. WOOD AND HIS HORSES
Chapter XVIII. MRS. WOOD'S POULTRY
Chapter XIX. A BAND OF MERCY
Chapter XX. STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS
Chapter XXI. MR. MAXWELL AND MR. HARRY
Chapter XXII. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TEA TABLE
Chapter XXIII. TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS
Chapter XXIV. THE RABBIT AND THE HEN
Chapter XXV. A HAPPY HORSE
Chapter XXVI. THE BOX OF MONEY
Chapter XXVII. A NEGLECTED STABLE
Chapter XXVIII. THE END OF THE ENGLISHMAN
Chapter XXIX. A TALK ABOUT SHEEP
Chapter XXX. A JEALOUS OX
Chapter XXXI. IN THE COW STABLE
Chapter XXXII. OUR RETURN HOME
Chapter XXXIII. PERFORMING ANIMALS
Chapter XXXIV. A FIRE IN FAIRPORT
Chapter XXXV. BILLY AND THE ITALIAN
Chapter XXXVI. DANDY THE TRAMP
Chapter 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.

CHAPTER II THE CRUEL MILKMAN

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 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 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 some times 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.

CHAPTER III MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA

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 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 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.

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