Beautiful Joe, Marshall Saunders [historical books to read .TXT] 📗

smell in animals, if it is a sense of smell. Joe

here has got a good bit of it."

 

"What kind of traps were they, father?" asked Mr. Harry.

 

"Cruel ones--steel ones. They'd catch an animal by the leg and sometimes

break the bone, the leg would bleed, and below the jaws of he trap it

would freeze, there being no circulation of the blood. Those steel traps

are an abomination. The people around here use one made on the same

principle for catching rats. I wouldn't have them on my place for any

money. I believe we've got to give an account for all the unnecessary

suffering we put on animals."

 

"You'll have some to answer for, John, according to your own story,"

said Mrs. Wood.

 

"I have suffered already," he said. "Many a night I've lain on my bed

and groaned, when I thought of needless cruelties I'd put upon animals

when I was a young, unthinking boy--and I was pretty carefully brought

up, too, according to our light in those days. I often think that if I

was cruel, with all the instruction I had to be merciful, what can be

expected of the children that get no good teaching at all when they're

young."

 

"Tell us some more about the foxes, Mr. Wood," said Mr. Maxwell.

 

"Well, we used to have rare sport hunting them with fox-hounds. I'd

often go off for the day with my hounds. Sometimes in the early morning

they'd find a track in the snow. The leader for scent would go back and

forth, to find out which way the fox was going. I can see him now. All

the time that he ran, now one way and now another on the track of the

fox, he was silent, but kept his tail aloft, wagging it as a signal to

the hounds behind. He was leader in scent, but he did not like bloody,

dangerous fights. By-and-by, he would decide which way the fox had gone.

Then his tail, still kept high in the air, would wag more violently. The

rest followed him in single file, going pretty slow, so as to enable us

to keep up to them. By-and-by, they would come to a place where the fox

was sleeping for the day. As soon as he was disturbed he would leave his

bed under some thick fir or spruce branches near the ground. This flung

his fresh scent into the air. As soon as the hounds sniffed it, they

gave tongue in good earnest. It was a mixed, deep baying, that made the

blood quicken in my veins. While in the excitement of his first fright,

the fox would run fast for a mile or two, till he found it an easy

matter to keep out of the way of the hounds. Then he, cunning creature,

would begin to bother them. He would mount to the top pole of the worm

fence dividing the fields from the woods. He could trot along here quite

a distance and then make a long jump into the woods. The hounds would

come up, but could not walk the fence, and they would have difficulty in

finding where the fox had left it. Then we saw generalship. The hounds

scattered in all directions, and made long detours into the woods and

fields. As soon as the track was lost, they ceased to bay, but the

instant a hound found it again, he bayed to give the signal to the

others. All would hurry to the spot, and off they would go baying as

they went.

 

"Then Mr. Fox would try a new trick. He would climb a leaning tree, and

then jump to the ground. This trick would soon be found out. Then he'd

try another. He would make a circle of a quarter of a mile in

circumference. By making a loop in his course, he would come in behind

the hounds, and puzzle them between the scent of his first and following

tracks. If the snow was deep, the hounds had made a good track for him.

Over this he could run easily, and they would have to feel their way

along, for after he had gone around the circle a few times, he would

jump from the beaten path as far as he could, and make off to other

cover in a straight line. Before this was done it was my plan to get

near the circle, taking care to approach it on the leeward side. If the

fox got a sniff of human scent, he would leave his circle very quickly,

and make tracks fast to be out of danger. By the baying of the hounds,

the circle in which the race was kept up could be easily known. The last

runs to get near enough to shoot had to be done when the hounds' baying

came from the side of the circle nearest to me. For then the fox would

be on the opposite side farthest away. As soon as I got near enough to

see the hounds when they passed, I stopped. When they got on the

opposite side, I then kept a bright lookout for the fox. Sometimes when

the brush was thick, the sight of him would be indistinct. The shooting

had to be quick. As soon as the report of the gun was heard, the hounds

ceased to bay, and made for the spot. If the fox was dead, they enjoyed

the scent of his blood. If only wounded, they went after him with all

speed.

 

"Sometimes he was overtaken and killed, and sometimes he got into his

burrow in the earth, or in a hollow log, or among the rocks.

 

"One day, I remember, when I was standing on the outside of the circle,

the fox came in sight. I fired. He gave a shrill bark, and came toward

Then he stopped in the snow and fell dead in his tracks. I was a

pretty good shot in those days."

 

"Poor little fox," said Miss Laura. "I wish you had let him get away."

 

"Here's one that nearly got away," said Mr. Wood. "One winter's day, I

was chasing him with the hounds. There was a crust on the snow, and the

fox was light, while the dogs were heavy. They ran along, the fox

trotting nimbly on the top of the crust and the dogs breaking through,

and every few minutes that fox would stop and sit down to look at the

dogs. They were in a fury, and the wickedness of the fox in teasing

them, made me laugh so much that I was very unwilling to shoot him."

 

"You said your steel traps were cruel things, uncle," said Miss Laura.

"Why didn't you have a deadfall for the foxes as you had for the bears?"

 

"They were too cunning to go into deadfalls. There was a better way to

catch them, though. Foxes hate water, and never go into it unless they

are obliged to, so we used to find a place where a tree had fallen

across a river, and made a bridge for them to go back and forth on. Here

we set snares, with spring poles that would throw them into the river

when they made struggles to get free, and drown them. Did you ever hear

of the fox, Laura, that wanted to cross a river, and lay down on the

bank pretending that he was dead, and a countryman came along, and,

thinking he had a prize, threw him in his boat and rowed across, when

the fox got up and ran away?"

 

"Now, uncle," said Miss Laura, "you're laughing at me. That couldn't be

true."

 

"No, no," said Mr. Wood, chuckling; "but they're mighty cute at

pretending they're dead. I once shot one in the morning, carried him a

long way on my shoulders, and started to skin him in the afternoon, when

he turned around and bit me enough to draw blood. At another time I dug

one out of a hole in the ground. He feigned death, I took him up and

threw him down at some distance, and he jumped up and ran into the

woods."

 

"What other animals did you catch when you were a boy?" asked Mr.

Maxwell.

 

"Oh, a number. Otters and beavers--we caught them in deadfalls and in

steel traps. The mink we usually took in deadfalls, smaller, of course,

than the ones we used for the bears. The musk-rat we caught in box traps

like a mouse trap. The wild-cat we ran down like the 'loup cervier'--"

 

"What kind of an animal is that?" asked Mr. Maxwell.

 

"It is a lynx, belonging to the cat species. They used to prowl about

the country killing hens, geese, and sometimes sheep. They'd fix their

tushes in the sheep's neck and suck the blood.

 

"They did not think much of the sheep's flesh. We ran them down with

dogs. They'd often run up trees, and we'd shoot them. Then there were

rabbits that we caught, mostly in snares. For musk-rats, we'd put a

parsnip or an apple on the spindle of a box trap. When we snared a

rabbit, I always wanted to find it caught around the neck and strangled

to death. If they got half through the snare and were caught around the

body, or by the hind legs, they'd live for some time, and they'd cry

just like a child. I like shooting them better, just because I hated to

hear their pitiful cries. It's a bad business this of killing dumb

creatures, and the older I get, the more chicken-hearted I am about it."

 

"Chicken-hearted--I should think you are," said Mrs. Wood. "Do you know,

Laura, he won't even kill a fowl for dinner. He gives it to one of the

men to do."

 

"Blessed are the merciful," said Miss Laura, throwing her arm over her

uncle's shoulder. "I love you, dear Uncle John, because you are so kind

to every living thing."

 

"I'm going to be kind to you now," said her uncle, "and send you to bed.

You look tired."

 

"Very well," she said, with a smile. Then bidding them all good-night,

she went upstairs. Mr. Wood turned to Mr. Maxwell. "You're going to stay

all night with us, aren't you?"

 

"So Mrs. Wood says," replied the young man, with a smile.

 

"Of course," she said. "I couldn't think of letting you go back to the

village such a night as this. It's raining cats and dogs--but I mustn't

say that, or there'll be no getting you to stay. I'll go and prepare

your old room next to Harry's." And she bustled away.

 

The two young men went to the pantry for doughnuts and milk, and Mr.

Wood stood gazing down at me. "Good dog," he said; "you look as if you

sensed that talk to-night. Come, get a bone, and then away to bed."

 

He gave me a very large mutton bone, and I held it in my mouth, and

watched him opening the woodshed door. I love human beings; and the

saddest time of day for me is when I have to be separated from them

while they sleep.

 

"Now, go to bed and rest well, Beautiful Joe," said Mr. Wood, "and if

you hear any stranger round the house, run out and bark. Don't be

chasing wild animals in your sleep, though. They say a dog is the only

animal that dreams. I wonder whether it's true?" Then he went into the

house and shut the door.

 

I had a sheepskin to lie on, and a very good bed it made. I slept

soundly for a long time; then I waked up and found that, instead of rain

pattering against the roof, and darkness everywhere, it was quite light.

The rain was over, and the moon was shining beautifully. I ran to the

door and looked out. It was almost as light as day. The moon made it

very bright all around the house and farm buildings, and I could look

all about and see that there was no one stirring. I took a turn around

the yard, and walked around to the side of the house, to glance up at

Miss Laura's window. I always did this several times through the night,

just to see if she was quite safe. I was on my way back to my bed, when

I saw two small, white things moving away down the lane. I stood on the

veranda and watched them. When they got nearer, I saw that there was a

white rabbit hopping up the road, followed by a white hen.

 

It seemed to me a very strange thing for these creatures to be out this

time of night, and why were they coming to Dingley Farm? This wasn't

their home. I ran down on the road and stood in front of them.

 

Just as soon as the hen saw me, she