Beautiful Joe Part 4

"It is, it is," said Mrs. Montague, in a despairing voice. "I can't help feeling it. Tell me something I can do to help some one."

Mrs. Morris sank back in her chair, her face very sad, and yet with something like pleasure in her eyes as she looked at her caller. "Your washerwoman," she said, "has a drunken husband and a cripple boy. I have often seen her standing over her tub, was.h.i.+ng your delicate muslins and laces, and dropping tears into the water."

"I will never send her anything more--she shall not be troubled," said Mrs. Montague, hastily.

Mrs. Morris could not help smiling. "I have not made myself clear. It is not the was.h.i.+ng that troubles her; it is her husband who beats her, and her boy who worries her. If you and I take our work from her, she will have that much less money to depend upon, and will suffer in consequence.

"She is a hard-working and capable woman, and makes a fair living. I would not advise you to give her money, for her husband would find it out, and take it from her. It is sympathy that she wants. If you could visit her occasionally, and show that you are interested in her, by talking or reading to her poor foolish boy or showing him a picture-book, you have no idea how grateful she would be to you, and how it would cheer her on her dreary way."

"I will go to see her to-morrow," said Mrs. Montague. "Can you think of any one else I could visit?"

"A great many," said Mrs. Morris; "but I don't think you had better undertake too much at once. I will give you the addresses of three or four poor families, where an occasional visit would do untold good. That is, it will do them good if you treat them as you do your richer friends. Don't give them too much money, or too many presents, till you find out what they need. Try to feel interested in them. Find out their ways of living, and what they are going to do with their children, and help them to get situations for them if you can. And be sure to remember that poverty does not always take away one's self-respect."

"I will, I will," said Mrs. Montague, eagerly. "When can you give me these addresses?"

Mrs. Morris smiled again, and, taking a piece of paper and a pencil from her work basket, wrote a few lines and handed them to Mrs. Montague.

The lady got up to take her leave. "And in regard to the dog," said Mrs.

Morris, following her to the door, "if you decide to allow Charlie to have one, you had better let him come in and have a talk with my boys about it. They seem to know all the dogs that are for sale in the town."

"Thank you; I shall be most happy to do so. He shall have his dog. When can you have him?"

"To-morrow, the next day, any day at all. It makes no difference to me.

Let him spend an afternoon and evening with the boys, if you do not object."

"It will give me much pleasure," and the little lady bowed and smiled, and after stooping down to pat me, tripped down the steps, and got into her carriage and drove away.

Mrs. Morris stood looking after her with a beaming face, and I began to think that I should like Mrs. Montague, too, if I knew her long enough.

Two days later I was quite sure I should, for I had a proof that she really liked me. When her little boy Charlie came to the house, he brought something for me done up in white paper. Mrs. Morris opened it, and there was a handsome, nickel-plated collar, with my name on it--Beautiful Joe.' Wasn't I pleased! They took off the little shabby leather strap that the boys had given me when I came, and fastened on my new collar, and then Mrs. Morris held me up to a gla.s.s to look at myself. I felt so happy. Up to this time I had felt a little ashamed of my cropped ears and docked tail, but now that I had a fine new collar I could hold up my head with any dog.

"Dear old Joe," said Mrs. Morris, pressing my head tightly between her hands. "You did a good thing the other day in helping me to start that little woman out of her selfish way of living."

I did not know about that, but I knew that I felt very grateful to Mrs.

Montague for my new collar, and ever afterward, when I met her in the street, I stopped and looked at her. Sometimes she saw me and stopped her carriage to speak to me; but I always wagged my tail, or rather my body, for I had no tail to wag, whenever I saw her, whether she saw me or not.

Her son got a beautiful Irish setter, called "Brisk." He had a silky coat and soft brown eyes, and his young master seemed very fond of him.

CHAPTER VI

THE FOX TERRIER BILLY

When I came to the Morrises, I knew nothing about the proper way of bringing up a puppy, I once heard of a little boy whose sister beat him so much that he said he was brought up by hand; so I think as Jenkins kicked me so much, I may say that I was brought up by foot.

Shortly after my arrival in my new home, I had a chance of seeing how one should bring up a little puppy.

One day I was sitting beside Miss Laura in the parlor, when the door opened and Jack came in. One of his hands was laid over the other, and he said to his sister, "Guess what I've got here."

"A bird," she said,

"No."

"A rat."

"No."

"A mouse."

"No--a pup."

"Oh, Jack," she said, reprovingly; for she thought he was telling a story.

He opened his hands and there lay the tiniest morsel of a fox terrier puppy that I ever saw. He was white, with black and tan markings. His body was pure white, his tail black, with a dash of tan; his ears black, and his face evenly marked with black and tan. We could not tell the color of his eyes, as they were not open. Later on, they turned out to be a pretty brown. His nose was pale pink, and when he got older, it became jet black.

"Why, Jack!" exclaimed Miss Laura, "his eyes aren't open; why did you take him from his mother?"

"She's dead," said Jack. "Poisoned--left her pups to run about the yard for a little exercise. Some brute had thrown over a piece of poisoned meat, and she ate it. Four of the pups died. This is the only one left.

Mr. Robinson says his man doesn't understand raising pups without their mothers, and as he is going away, he wants us to have it, for we always had such luck in nursing sick animals."

Mr. Robinson I knew was a friend of the Morrises, and a gentleman who was fond of fancy stock, and imported a great deal of it from England.

If this puppy came from him, it was sure to be good one.

Miss Laura took the tiny creature, and went upstairs very thoughtfully.

I followed her, and watched her get a little basket and line it with cotton wool. She put the puppy in it and looked at him. Though it was midsummer, and the house seemed very warm to me, the little creature was s.h.i.+vering, and making a low murmuring noise. She pulled the wool all over him and put the window down, and set his basket in the sun,

Then she went to the kitchen and got some warm milk. She dipped her finger in it, and offered it to the puppy, but he went nosing about it in a stupid way, and wouldn't touch it "Too young," Miss Laura said. She got a little piece of muslin put some bread in it, tied a string round it, and dipped it in the milk. When she put this to the puppy's mouth, he sucked it greedily. He acted as if he was starving, but Miss Laura only let him have a little.

Every few hours for the rest of the day, she gave him some more milk, and I heard the boys say that for many nights she got up once or twice and heated milk over a lamp for him. One night the milk got cold before he took it, and he swelled up and became so ill that Miss Laura had to rouse her mother and get some hot water to plunge him in. That made him well again, and no one seemed to think it was a great deal of trouble to take for a creature that was nothing but a dog.

He fully repaid them for all his care, for he turned out to be one of the prettiest and most lovable dogs that I ever saw. They called him Billy, and the two events of his early life were the opening of his eyes and the swallowing of his muslin rag. The rag did not seem to hurt him; but Miss Laura said that, as he had got so strong and so greedy, he must learn to eat like other dogs.

He was very amusing when he was a puppy. He was full of tricks, and he crept about in a mischievous way when one did not know he was near. He was a very small puppy and used to climb inside Miss Laura's Jersey sleeve up to her shoulder when he was six weeks old. One day, when the whole family was in the parlor, Mr. Morris suddenly flung aside his newspaper, and began jumping up and down. Mrs. Morris was very much alarmed, and cried out, "My dear William, what is the matter?"

"There's a rat up my leg," he said, shaking it violently. Just then little Billy fell out on the floor and lay on his back looking up at Mr.

Morris with a surprised face. He had felt cold and thought it would be warm inside Mr. Morris' trouser's leg.

However, Billy never did any real mischief, thanks to Miss Laura's training. She began to punish him just as soon as he began to tear and worry things. The first thing he attacked was Mr. Morris' felt hat. The wind blew it down the hall one day, and Billy came along and began to try it with his teeth. I dare say it felt good to them, for a puppy is very like a baby and loves something to bite.