Beautiful Joe [98]
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