Beautiful Joe Part 28

Months pa.s.sed away, and nothing was heard of him. Late in the autumn, after Miss Laura and I had gone back to Fairport, Mrs. Wood wrote her about the end of the Englishman. Some Riverdale lads were beating about the woods, looking for lost cattle, and in their wanderings came to an old stone quarry that had been disused for years. On one side there was a smooth wall of rock, many feet deep. On the other the ground and rock were broken away, and it was quite easy to get into it. They found that by some means or other, one of their cows had fallen into this deep pit, over the steep side of the quarry. Of course, the poor creature was dead, but the boys, out of curiosity, resolved to go down and look at her. They clambered down, found the cow, and, to their horror and amazement, discovered near-by the skeleton of a man. There was a heavy walking-stick by his side, which they recognized as one that the Englishman had carried.

He was a drinking man, and perhaps he had taken something that he thought would strengthen him for his morning's walk, but which had, on the contrary, bewildered him, and made him lose his way and fall into the quarry. Or he might have started before daybreak, and in the darkness have slipped and fallen down this steep wall of rock. One leg was doubled under him, and if he had not been instantly killed by the fall, he must have been so disabled that he could not move. In that lonely place, he would call for help in vain, so he may have perished by the terrible death of starvation--the death he had thought to mete out to his suffering animals.

Mrs. Wood said that there was never a sermon preached in Riverdale that had the effect that the death of this wicked man had, and it reminded her of a verse in the Bible: "He made a pit and he digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made." Mrs. Wood said that her husband had written about the finding of Mr. Barron's body to his English relatives, and had received a letter from them in which they seemed relieved to hear that he was dead. They thanked Mr. Wood for his plain speaking in telling them of their relative's misdeeds, and said that from all they knew of Mr. Barron's past conduct, his influence would be for evil and not for good, in any place that he choose to live in. They were having their money sent from Boston to Mr. Wood, and they wished him to expend it in the way he thought best fitted to counteract the evil effects of their namesake's doings in Riverdale.

When this money came, it amounted to some hundreds of dollars. Mr. Wood would have nothing to do with it. He handed it over to the Band of Mercy, and they formed what they called the "Barron Fund," which they drew upon when they wanted money for buying and circulating humane literature. Mrs. Wood said that the fund was being added to, and the children were sending all over the State leaflets and little books which preached the gospel of kindness to G.o.d's lower creation. A stranger picking one of them up, and seeing the name of the wicked Englishman printed on the t.i.tle-page, would think that he was a friend and benefactor to the Riverdale people--the very opposite of what he gloried in being.

CHAPTER XXIX

A TALK ABOUT SHEEP

Miss Laura was very much interested in the sheep on Dingley Farm. There was a flock in the orchard near the house that she often went to see.

She always carried roots and vegetables to them, turnips particularly, for they were very fond of them; but they would not come to her to get them, for they did not know her voice. They only lifted their heads and stared at her when she called them. But when they heard Mr. Wood's voice, they ran to the fence, bleating with pleasure, and trying to push their noses through to get the carrot or turnip, or whatever he was handing to them. He called them his little Southdowns, and he said he loved his sheep, for they were the most gentle and inoffensive creatures that he had on his farm.

One day when he came into the kitchen inquiring for salt, Miss Laura said: "Is it for the sheep?"

"Yes," he replied; "I am going up to the woods pasture to examine my Shropshires."

"You would like to go too, Laura," said Mrs. Wood. "Take your hands right away from that cake. I'll finish frosting it for you. Run along and get your broad-brimmed hat. It's very hot."

Miss Laura danced out into the hall and back again, and soon we were walking up, back of the house, along a path that led us through the fields to the pasture. "What are you going to do, uncle?" she said; "and what are those funny things in your hands?"

"Toe-clippers," he replied, "and I am going to examine the sheeps'

hoofs. You know we've had warm, moist weather all through July, and I'm afraid of foot-rot. Then they're sometimes troubled with overgrown hoofs."

"What do you do if they get foot-rot?" asked Miss Laura.

"I've various cures," he said. "Paring and clipping, and dipping the hoof in blue vitriol and vinegar, or rubbing it on, as the English shepherds do. It destroys the diseased part, but doesn't affect the sound."

"Do sheep have many diseases?" asked Miss Laura. "I know one of them myself--that is the scab."

"A nasty thing that," said Mr. Wood, vigorously; "and a man that builds up a flock from a stockyard often finds it out to his cost."

"What is it like?" asked Miss Laura.

"The sheep get scabby from a microbe under the skin, which causes them to itch fearfully, and they lose their wool."

"And can't it be cured?"

"Oh, yes! with time and attention. There are different remedies. I believe petroleum is the best."

By this time we had got to a wide gate that opened into the pasture. As Mr. Wood let Miss Laura go through and then closed it behind her, he said, "You are looking at that gate. You want to know why it is so long, don't you?"

"Yes, uncle," she said; "but I can't bear to ask so many questions."

"Ask as many as you like," he said, good-naturedly. "I don't mind answering them. Have you ever seen sheep pa.s.s through a gate or door?"

"Oh, yes, often."

"And how do they act?"

"Oh, so silly, uncle. They hang back, and one waits for another; and, finally, they all try to go at once."

"Precisely; when one goes they all want to go, if it was to jump into a bottomless pit. Many sheep are injured by overcrowding, so I have my gates and doors very wide. Now, let us call them up." There wasn't one in sight, but when Mr. Wood lifted up his voice and cried: "Ca nan, nan, nan!" black faces began to peer out from among the bushes; and little black legs, carrying white bodies, came hurrying up the stony paths from the cooler parts of the pasture. Oh, how glad they were to get the salt!

Mr. Wood let Miss Laura spread it on some flat rocks, then they sat down on a log under a tree and watched them eating it and licking the rocks when it was all gone. Miss Laura sat fanning herself with her hat and smiling at them. "You funny, woolly things," she said; "You're not so stupid as some people think you are. Lie still, Joe. If you show yourself, they may run away."

I crouched behind the log, and only lifted my head occasionally to see what the sheep were doing. Some of them went back into the woods, for it was very hot in this bare part of the pasture, but the most of them would not leave Mr. Wood, and stood staring at him. "That's a fine sheep, isn't it?" said Miss Laura, pointing to one with the blackest face, and the blackest legs, and largest body of those near us.

"Yes; that's old Jessica. Do you notice how she's holding her head close to the ground?"

"Yes; is there any reason for it?"

"There is. She's afraid of the grub fly. You often see sheep holding their noses in that way in the summer time. It is to prevent the fly from going into their nostrils, and depositing an egg, which will turn into a grub and annoy and worry them. When the fly comes near, they give a sniff and run as if they were crazy, still holding their noses close to the ground. When I was a boy, and the sheep did that, we thought that they had colds in their heads, and used to rub tar on their noses. We knew nothing about the fly then, but the tar cured them, and is just what I use now. Two or three times a month during hot weather, we put a few drops of it on the nose of every sheep in the flock."

"I suppose farmers are like other people, and are always finding out better ways of doing their work, aren't they, uncle?" said Miss Laura.

"Yes, my child. The older I grow, the more I find out, and the better care I take of my stock. My grandfather would open his eyes in amazement; and ask me if I was an old women petting her cats, if he were alive, and could know the care I give my sheep. He used to let his flock run till the fields were covered with snow, and bite as close as they liked, till there wasn't a sc.r.a.p of feed left. Then he would give them an open shed to run under, and throw down their hay outside. Grain they scarcely knew the taste of. That they would fall off in flesh, and half of them lose their lambs in the spring, was an expected thing. He would say I had them kennelled, if he could see my big, closed sheds, with the sunny windows that my flock spend the winter in. I even house them during the bad fall storms. They can run out again. Indeed, I like to get them in, and have a snack of dry food, to break them in to it. They are in and out of those sheds all winter. You must go in, Laura, and see the self-feeding racks. On bright, winter days they get a run in the cornfields. Cold doesn't hurt sheep. It's the heavy rain that soaks their fleeces.

"With my way I seldom lose a sheep, and they're the most profitable stock I have. If I could not keep them, I think I'd give up farming.

Last year my lambs netted me eight dollars each. The fleeces of the ewes average eight pounds, and sell for two dollars each. That's something to brag of in these days, when so many are giving up the sheep industry."

"How many sheep have you, uncle?" asked Miss Laura.

"Only fifty, now. Twenty-five here and twenty-five down below in the orchard. I've been selling a good many this spring."

"These sheep are larger than those in the orchard, aren't they?" said Miss Laura.

"Yes; I keep those few Southdowns for their fine quality. I don't make as much on them as I do on these Shropshires. For an all-around sheep I like the Shropshire. It's good for mutton, for wool, and for rearing lambs. There's a great demand for mutton nowadays, all through our eastern cities. People want more and more of it. And it has to be tender, and juicy, and finely flavored, so a person has to be particular about the feed the sheep get."

"Don't you hate to have these creatures killed, that you have raised and tended so carefully?" said Miss Laura with a little shudder.

"I do," said her uncle; "but never an animal goes off my place that I don't know just how it's going to be put to death. None of your sending sheep to market with their legs tied together, and jammed in a cart, and sweating and suffering for me. They've got to go standing comfortably on their legs, or go not at all. And I'm going to know the butcher that kills my animals, that have been petted like children. I said to Davidson, over there in Hoytville, 'If I thought you would herd my sheep and lambs and calves together, and take them one by one in sight of the rest, and stick your knife into them, or stun them, and have the others lowing, and bleating, and crying in their misery, this is the last consignment you would ever get from me.'

"He said, 'Wood, I don't like my business, but on the word of an honest man, my butchering is done as well as it can be. Come and see for yourself.'

"He took me to his slaughter-house, and though I didn't stay long, I saw enough to convince me that he spoke the truth. He has different pens and sheds, and the killing is done as quietly as possible; the animals are taken in one by one, and though the others suspect what is going on, they can't see it."