Chapter IX

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!"