Beautiful Joe

“Father never said a word, but he was doing a lot of thinking. He went into the house, and found the old man sitting over the fire, rubbing his hands, and half-crying about ‘the few poor dollars,’ that he said he had had stolen from him. Father had never seen him before, but he knew he had the name of being half silly, and question him as much as he liked, he could make nothing of him. The daughter said that they had gone to bed at dark the night her father was robbed. She slept up stairs, and he down below. About ten o’clock she heard him scream, and running down stairs, she found him sitting up in bed, and the window wide open. He said a man had sprung in upon him, stuffed the bedclothes into his mouth, and dragging his box from under the bed, had made off with it. She ran to the door and looked out, but there was no one to be seen. It was dark, and snowing a little, so no traces of footsteps were to be perceived in the morning.

“Father found that the neighbors were dropping in to bear the old man company, so he drove on to Sudbury, and then returned home. When he got back, he said Jacobs was hanging about the stable in a nervous kind of a way, and said he wanted to speak to him. Father said very good, but put the horse in first. Jacobs unhitched, and father sat on one of the stable benches and watched him till he came lounging along with a straw in his mouth, and said he’d made up his mind to go West, and he’d like to set off at once.

“Father said again, very good, but first he had a little account to settle with him, and he took out of his pocket a paper, where he had jotted down, as far as he could, every quart of oats, and every bag of grain, and every quarter of a dollar of market money that Jacobs had defrauded him of. Father said the fellow turned all the colors of the rainbow, for he thought he had covered up his tracks so cleverly that he would never be found out. Then father said, ‘Sit down, Jacobs, for I have got to have a long talk with you.’ He had him there about an hour, and when he finished, the fellow was completely broken down. Father told him that there were just two courses in life for a young man to take; and he had gotten on the wrong one. He was a young, smart fellow, and if he turned right around now, there was a chance for him. If he didn’t there was nothing but the State’s prison ahead of him, for he needn’t think he was going to gull and cheat all the world, and never be found out. Father said he’d give him all the help in his power, if he had his word that he’d try to be an honest man. Then he tore up the paper, and laid there was an end of his indebtedness to him.

“Jacobs is only a young fellow, twenty-three or thereabout, and father says he sobbed like a baby. Then, without looking at him, father gave in account of his afternoon’s drive, just as if he was talking to himself. He said that Pacer never to his knowledge had been on that road before, and yet he seemed perfectly familiar with it, and that he stopped and turned already to leave again quickly, instead of going up to the door, and how he looked over his shoulder and started on a run down the lane, the minute father’s foot was in the cutter again. In the course of his remarks, father mentioned the fact that on Monday, the evening that the robbery was committed, Jacobs had borrowed Pacer to go to the Junction, but had come in with the horse steaming, and looking as if he had been driven a much longer distance than that. Father said that when he got done, Jacobs had sunk down all in a heap on the stable floor with his hands over his face. Father left him to have it out with himself, and went to the house.

“The next morning, Jacobs looked just the same as usual, and went about with the other men doing his work, but saying nothing about going West. Late in the afternoon, a farmer going by hailed father, and asked if he’d heard the news. Old Miser Jerrold’s box had been left on his door step some time through the night, and he’d found it in the morning. The money was all there, but the old fellow was so cute that he wouldn’t tell any one how much it was. The neighbors had persuaded him to bank it, and he was coming to town the next morning with it, and that night some of them were going to help him mount guard over it. Father told the men at milking time, and he said Jacobs looked as unconscious as possible However, from that day there was a change in him. He never told father in so many words that he’d resolved to be an honest man, but his actions spoke for him. He had been a kind of sullen, unwilling fellow, but now he turned handy and obliging, and it was a real trial to father to part with him.”

Miss Laura was intensely interested in this story. “Where is he now, Cousin Harry?” she asked, eagerly. “What became of him?”

Mr. Harry laughed in such amusement that I stared up at him, and even Fleetfoot turned his head around to see what the joke was. We were going very slowly up a long, steep hill, and in the clear, still air, we could hear every word spoken in the buggy.

“The last part of the story is the best, to my mind,” said Mr. Harry, “and as romantic as even a girl could desire. The affair of the stolen box was much talked about along Sudbury way, and Miss Jerrold got to be considered quite a desirable young person among some of the youth near there, though she is a frowsy-headed creature, and not as neat in her personal attire as a young girl should be. Among her suitors was Jacobs. He cut out a blacksmith and a painter, and several young farmers, and father said he never in his life had such a time to keep a straight face, as when Jacobs came to him this spring, and said he was going to marry old Miser Jerrold’s daughter. He wanted to quit father’s employ, and he thanked him in a real manly way for the manner in which he had always treated him. Well Jacobs left, and mother says that father would sit and speculate about him, as to whether he had fallen in love with Eliza Jerrold, or whether he was determined to regain possession of the box, and was going to do it honestly, or whether he was sorry for having frightened the old man into a greater degree of imbecility, and was marrying the girl so that he could take care of him, or whether it was something else, and so on, and so on. He had a dozen theories, and then mother says he would burst out laughing, and say it was one of the cutest tricks that he had ever heard of.

“In the end, Jacobs got married, and father and mother went to the wedding. Father gave the bridegroom a yoke of oxen, and mother gave the bride a lot of household linen, and I believe they’re as happy as the day is long. Jacobs makes his wife comb her hair, and he waits on the old man as if he was his son, and he is improving the farm that was going to rack and ruin, and I hear he is going to build a new house.”

“Harry,” exclaimed Miss Laura, “can’t you take me to see them?”

“Yes, indeed; mother often drives over to take them little things, and we’ll go, too, sometime. I’d like to see Jacobs myself, now that he is a decent fellow. Strange to say, though he hadn’t the best of character, no one has ever suspected him of the robbery, and he’s been cunning enough never to say a word about it. Father says Jacobs is like all the rest of us. There’s mixture of good and evil in him, and sometimes one predominates, and sometimes the other. But we must get on and not talk here all day. Get up, Fleetfoot.”

“Where did you say we were going?” asked Miss Laura, as we crossed the bridge over the river.

“A little way back here in the woods,” he replied. “There’s an Englishman on a small clearing that he calls Penhollow. Father loaned him some money three years ago, and he won’t pay either interest or principal.”

“I think I’ve heard of him,” said Miss Laura “Isn’t he the man whom the boys call Lord Chesterfield?”

“The same one. He’s a queer specimen of a man. Father has always stood up for him. He has a great liking for the English. He says we ought to be as ready to help an Englishman as an American, for we spring from common stock.”

“Oh, not Englishmen only,” said Miss Laura, warmly; “Chinamen, and Negroes, and everybody. There ought to be a brotherhood of nations, Harry.”

“Yes, Miss Enthusiasm, I suppose there ought to be,” and looking up, I could see that Mr. Harry was gazing admiringly into his cousin’s face.

“Please tell me some more about the Englishman,” said Miss Laura.

“There isn’t much to tell. He lives alone, only coming occasionally to the village for supplies, and though he is poorer than poverty, he despises every soul within a ten-mile radius of him, and looks upon us as no better than an order of thrifty, well-trained lower animals.”

“Why is that?” asked Miss Laura, in surprise.

“He is a gentleman, Laura, and we are only common people. My father can’t hand a lady in and out of a carriage as Lord Chesterfield can, nor can he make so grand a bow, nor does he put on evening dress for a late dinner, and we never go to the opera nor to the theatre, and know nothing of polite society, nor can we tell exactly whom our great-great-grandfather sprang from. I tell you, there is a gulf between us and that Englishman, wider than the one young Curtius leaped into.”

Miss Laura was laughing merrily. “How funny that sounds, Harry. So he despises you,” and she glanced at her good-looking cousin, and his handsome buggy and well-kept horse, and then burst into another merry peal of laughter.

Mr. Harry laughed, too. “It does seem absurd. Sometimes when I pass him jogging along to town in his rickety old cart, and look at his pale, cruel face, and know that he is a broken-down gambler and man of the world, and yet considers himself infinitely superior to me a young man in the prime of life, with a good constitution and happy prospects, it makes me turn away to hide a smile.”

By this time we had left the river and the meadows far behind us, and were passing through a thick wood. The road was narrow and very broken, and Fleetfoot was obliged to pick his way carefully. “Why does the Englishman live in this out-of-the-way place, if he is so fond of city life?” said Miss Laura.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Harry. “Father is afraid that he has committed some misdeed, and is in hiding; but we say nothing about it. We have not seen him for some weeks, and to tell the truth, this trip is as much to see what has become of him, as to make a demand upon him for the money. As he lives alone, he might lie there ill, and no one would know anything about it. The last time that we knew of his coming to the village was to draw quite a sum of money from the bank. It annoyed father, for he said he might take some of it to pay his debts. I think his relatives in England supply him with funds. Here we are at the entrance to the mansion of Penhollow. I must get out and open the gate that will admit us to the winding avenue.”

We had arrived in front of some bars which were laid across an opening in the snake fence that ran along one side of the road. I sat down and looked about. It was a strange, lonely place. The trees almost met overhead, and it was very dim and quiet. The sun could only send little straggling beams through the branches. There was a muddy pool of water before the bars that Mr. Harry was letting down, and he got his feet wet in it. “Confound that Englishman,” he said, backing out of the water, and wiping his boots on the grass. “He hasn’t even gumption enough to throw down a load of stone there. Drive in, Laura, and I’ll put up the bars.” Fleetfoot took us through the opening, and then Mr. Harry jumped into the buggy and took up the reins again.

We had to go very slowly up a narrow, rough road. The bushes scratched and scraped against the buggy, and Mr. Harry looked very much annoyed.

“No man liveth to himself,” said Miss Laura, softly. “This man’s carelessness is giving you trouble. Why doesn’t he cut these branches that overhang the road?”

“He can’t do it, because his abominable laziness won’t let him,” said Mr. Harry. “I’d like to be behind him for a week, and I’d make him step a little faster. We have arrived at last, thank goodness.”

There was a small grass clearing in the midst of the woods. Chips and bits of wood were littered about, and across the clearing was a roughly-built house of unpainted boards. The front door was propped open by a stick. Some of the panes of glass in the windows were broken, and the whole house had a melancholy, dilapidated look. I thought that I had never seen such a sad-looking place.

“It seems as if there was no one about,” said Mr. Harry, with a puzzled face. “Barron must be away. Will you hold Fleetfoot, Laura, while I go and see?”

He drew the buggy up near a small log building that had evidently been used for a stable, and I lay down beside it and watched Miss Laura.

CHAPTER XXVII A NEGLECTED STABLE

I HAD not been on the ground more than a few seconds, before I turned my eyes from Miss Laura to the log hut. It was deathly quiet, there was not a sound coming from it, but the air was full of queer smells, and I was so uneasy that I could not lie still. There was something the matter with Fleetfoot, too. He was pawing the ground and whinnying, and looking, not after Mr. Harry, but toward the log building.

“Joe,” said Miss Laura, “what is the matter with you and Fleetfoot? Why don’t you stand still? Is there any stranger about?” and she peered out of the buggy.

I knew there was something wrong somewhere, but I didn’t know what it was; so I stretched myself up on the step of the buggy, and licked her hand, and barking, to ask her to excuse me, I ran off to the other side of the log hut. There was a door there, but it was closed, and propped firmly up by a plank that I could not move, scratch as hard as I liked. I was determined to get in, so I jumped against the door, and tore and bit at the plank, till Miss Laura came to help me.

“You won’t find anything but rats in that ramshackle old place, Beautiful Joe,” she said, as she pulled the plank away; “and as you don’t hurt them, I don’t see what you want to get in for. However, you are a sensible dog, and usually have a reason for having your own way, so I am going to let you have it.”

The plank fell down as she spoke, and she pulled open the rough door and looked in. There was no window inside, only the light that streamed through the door, so that for an instant she could see nothing. “Is any one here?” she asked, in her clear, sweet voice. There was no answer except a low, moaning sound. “Why, some poor creature is in trouble, Joe,” said Miss Laura, cheerfully. “Let us see what it is,” and she stepped inside.

I shall never forget seeing my dear Miss Laura going into that wet and filthy log house, holding up her white dress in her hands, her face a picture of pain and horror. There were two rough stalls in it, and in the first one was tied a cow, with a calf lying beside her. I could never have believed, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, that an animal could get so thin as that cow was. Her backbone rose up high and sharp, her hip bones stuck away out, and all her body seemed shrunken in. There were sores on her sides, and the smell from her stall was terrible. Miss Laura gave one cry of pity, then with a very pale face she dropped her dress, and seizing a little penknife from her pocket, she hacked at the rope that tied the cow to the manger, and cut it so that the cow could lie down. The first thing the poor cow did was to lick her calf, but it was quite dead. I used to think Jenkins’ cows were thin enough, but he never had one that looked like this. Her head was like the head of a skeleton, and her eyes had such a famished look, that I turned away, sick at heart, to think that she had suffered so.

When the cow lay down, the moaning noise stopped, for she had been making it. Miss Laura ran outdoors, snatched a handful of grass and took it in to her. The cow ate it gratefully, but slowly, for her strength seemed all gone.

Miss Laura then went into the other stall to see if there was any creature there. There had been a horse. There was now a lean, gaunt-looking animal lying on the ground, that seemed as if he was dead. There was a heavy rope knotted around his neck, and fastened to his empty rack. Miss Laura stepped carefully between his feet, cut the rope and going outside the stall spoke kindly to him. He moved his ears slightly, raised his head, tried to get up, fell back again, tried again and succeeded in staggering outdoors after Miss Laura, who kept encouraging him, and then he fell down on the grass.

Fleetfoot stared at the miserable-looking creature as if he did not know what it was. The horse had no sores on his body, as the cow had, nor was he quite so lean: but he was the weakest, most distressed-looking animal that I ever saw. The flies settled on him, and Miss Laura had to keep driving them away. He was a white horse, with some kind of pale-colored eyes, and whenever he turned them on Miss Laura, she would look away. She did not cry, as she often did over the sick and suffering animals. This seemed too bad for tears. She just hovered over that poor horse with her face as white as her dress, and an expression of fright in her eyes. Oh, how dirty he was! I would never have imagined that a horse could get in such a condition.

All this had only taken a few minutes, and just after she got the horse out, Mr. Harry appeared. He came out of the house with a slow step, that quickened to a run when he saw Miss Laura “Laura!” he exclaimed, “what are you doing?” Then he stopped and looked at the horse, not in amazement, but very sorrowfully. “Barron is gone,” he said, and crumpling up a piece of paper, he put it in his pocket. “What is to be done to these animals? There is a cow, isn’t there?”

He stepped to the door of the log hut, glanced in, and said, quickly: “Do you feel able to drive home?”

“Yes,” said Miss Laura.

“Sure?” and he eyed her anxiously.

“Yes, yes,” she returned; “what shall I get?”

“Just tell father that Barron has run away and left a starving pig, cow, and horse. There’s not a thing to eat here. He’ll know what to do. I’ll drive you to the road.”

Miss Laura got into the buggy and Mr. Harry jumped in after her. He drove her to the road and put down the bars; then he said: “Go straight on. You’ll soon be on the open road, and there’s nothing to harm you. Joe will look after you. Meanwhile I’ll go back to the house and heat some water.”

Miss Laura let Fleetfoot go as fast as he liked on the way home, and it only seemed a few minutes before we drove into the yard. Adele came out to meet us. “Where’s uncle?” asked Miss Laura.

“Gone to de big meadow,” said Adele.

“And auntie?”

“She had de colds and chills, and entered into de bed to keep warm. She lose herself in sleep now. You not go near her.”

“Are there none of the men about?” asked Miss Laura.

“No, mademoiselle. Dey all occupied way off.”

“Then you help me, Adele, like a good girl,” said Miss Laura, hurrying into the house. “We’ve found a sick horse and cow. What shall I take them?”

“Nearly all animals like de bran mash,” said Adele.

“Good!” cried Miss Laura. “That is the very thing. Put in the things to make it, will you please, and I would like some vegetables for the cow. Carrots, turnips, anything you have; take some of those you have prepared for dinner to-morrow, and please run up to the barn, Adele, and get some hay, and corn, and oats, not much, for we’ll be going back again; but hurry, for the poor things are starving, and have you any milk for the pig? Put it in one of those tin kettles with covers.”

For a few minutes, Miss Laura and Adele flew about the kitchen, then we set off again. Miss Laura took me in the buggy, for I was out of breath and wheezing greatly. I had to sit on the seat beside her, for the bottom of the buggy and the back were full of eatables for the poor sick animals. Just as we drove into the road, we met Mr. Wood. “Are you running away with the farm?” he said with a laugh, pointing to the carrot tops that were gaily waving over the dashboard.

Miss Laura said a few words to him, and with a very grave face he got in beside her. In a short time, we were back on the lonely road. Mr. Harry was waiting at the gate for us, and when he saw Miss Laura, he said, “Why did you come back again? You’ll be tired out. This isn’t a place for a sensitive girl like you.”

“I thought I might be of some use,” said she, gently.

“So you can,” said Mr. Wood. “You go into the house and sit down, and Harry and I will come to you when we want cheering up. What have you been doing, Harry?”

“I’ve watered them a little, and got a good fire going. I scarcely think the cow will pull through. I think we’ll save the horse. I tried to get the cow out-doors, but she can’t move.”

“Let her alone,” said Mr. Wood. “Give her some food and her strength will come to her. What have you got here?” and he began to take the things out of the buggy. “Bless the child, she’s thought of everything, even the salt. Bring those things into the house, Harry, and we’ll make a bran mash.”

For more than an hour they were fussing over the animals. Then they came in and sat down. The inside of the Englishman’s house was as untidy as the outside. There was no upstairs to it only one large room with a dirty curtain stretched across it. On one side was a low bed with a heap of clothes on it, a chair and a washstand. On the other was a stove, a table, a shaky rocking-chair that Miss Laura was sitting in, a few hanging shelves with some dishes and books on them, and two or three small boxes that had evidently been used for seats.

On the walls were tacked some pictures of grand houses and ladies and gentlemen in fine clothes, and Miss Laura said that some of them were noble people. “Well, I’m glad this particular nobleman has left us,” said Mr. Wood, seating himself on one of the boxes, “if nobleman he is. I should call him in plain English, a scoundrel. Did Harry show you his note?”

“No, uncle,” said Miss Laura.

“Read it aloud,” said Mr. Wood. “I’d like to hear it again.”

Miss Laura read:

J. WOOD, Esq., Dear Sir: It is a matter of great regret to me that I am suddenly called away from my place at Penhollow, and will therefore not be able to do myself the pleasure of calling on you and settling my little account. I sincere hope that the possession of my live stock, which I make entirely over to you, will more than reimburse you for any trifling expense which you may have incurred on my account. If it is any gratification to you to know that you have rendered a slight assistance to the son of one of England’s noblest noblemen, you have it. With expressions of the deepest respect, and hoping that my stock may be in good condition when you take possession,

I am, dear sir, ever devotedly yours,

HOWARD ALGERNON LEDUC BARRON.

Miss Laura dropped the paper. “Uncle, did he leave those animals to starve?”

“Didn’t you notice,” said Mr. Wood, grimly, “that there wasn’t a wisp of hay inside that shanty, and that where the poor beasts were tied up the wood was knawed and bitten by them in their torture for food? Wouldn’t he have sent me that note, instead of leaving it here on the table, if he’d wanted me to know? The note isn’t dated, but I judge he’s been gone five or six days. He has had a spite against me ever since I lent him that hundred dollars. I don’t know why, for I’ve stood up for him when others would have run him out of the place. He intended me to come here and find every animal lying dead. He even had a rope around the pig’s neck. Harry, my boy, let us go and look after them again. I love a dumb brute too well to let it suffer, but in this case I’d give two hundred dollars more if I could make them live and have Barron know it.”

They left the room, and Miss Laura sat turning the sheet of paper over and over, with a kind of horror in her face. It was a very dirty piece of paper, but by-and-by she made a discovery. She took it in her hand and went out-doors. I am sure that the poor horse lying on the grass knew her. He lifted his head, and what a different expression he had now that his hunger had been partly satisfied. Miss Laura stroked and patted him, then she called to her cousin, “Harry, will you look at this?”

He took the paper from her, and said: “that is a crest shining through the different strata of dust and grime, probably that of his own family. We’ll have it cleaned, and it will enable us to track the villain. You want him punished, don’t you?” he said, with a little, sly laugh at Mist Laura.