Part 3

“Well,” he exclaimed, “this is all news to me! There is logic and good sound sense in your whole scheme, and it’s strange I never thought of it before. You have studied the subject of intellectual development in animals and gotten something out of it I had never dreamed of. Ever since I have been able to think my head has been filled with common law, Court decisions, and the Statute in such case made and provided, and I have had but little time, and, possibly, less disposition, to indulge in sentiment. I suppose you know the people of your native state well enough to appreciate their strong and weak points. The Vermonter, as a rule, does not waste any time upon sentimentality; he is too busy digging out a living from these old hills and from between the rocks for those dependent upon him to waste much time cultivating the sentimental side. He is quite apt to take the utilitarian view of most earthly matters. His horse he regards as a useful animal, to be well fed and comfortably housed in order to prolong his usefulness as much as possible; and his dog he looks upon as a useless companion—not worthy of respect, comfortable lodging, or good food, unless he earns all three by bringing up the cows at night and chasing all marauders from grain and planted fields during the day. Your side of the animal question is a new one, and I am going to commence operations upon my faithful burden-carrier as soon as we reach the stable. I’d be mightily pleased to have him walk along with me and put his velvety nose against my face as I have seen your calico friend do with you. All men, all real men, properly put together, are fond of being loved, and are willing to take it in wholesale doses, and a little dog and horse—when the women are not around—thrown in to fill between the chinks, helps to make a perfect whole. We men are a careless, selfish lot, who leave mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and dogs and horses to do the most of the loving, and accept it as a matter of right, without making the returns which are their due. They trudge along in silence, giving us their affection, and work on, chiefly for us, when they ought to kick. In giving me this Sunday lesson you have opened up a new lead in my make-up, and I intend to explore it until I develop a new deposit of humanity, and I’ll commence by stealing a lump of sugar for ‘Old Whitey’ the next time I leave the tavern table, and, instead of having it charged in the bill, I’ll open a new account, and credit my first theft to the cause of animal development.”

The next morning I parted from my judicial acquaintance, he volunteering the promise to write and let me know the result of his new experiment among the inhabitants of the barnyard. During the night he had “analyzed the whole business,” and arrived at the conclusion that there were other dumb creatures besides dogs and horses worthy of cultivating. The much neglected and despised pig, he proposed, with apparent humorous sincerity, to take in hand, and make a special effort to reform his manners and cultivate his mental faculties. He argued that human society was responsible for “downing the pig.” It is a question of “mad dog!” over again, he declared. “Some one in the far-off past had said the hog was a filthy beast, and without stopping to inquire, everybody else had joined in the cry. My mission is to do away with this unreasonable prejudice, and to elevate to his proper social and intellectual position among the animals of the earth my much abused and unappreciated porcine friend.” These were his jovial parting words, and, with them ringing in my ears, the trio made the morning start for the last day of the outward-bound part of the excursion.

A thirty miles ride carried us to one of the oldest villages in the northern part of the State—not far from the Canada line. One long street, made up of the blacksmith, shoemaker, and tinshop; a dry goods “Emporium,” a tavern—“The Farmers’ Home”—and the usual number of churches, with a doctor’s shop, and a few dwellings thrown in, here and there, to fill up the intervals between the more important structures—made, with a good supply of shade-trees, an attractive village. Of course the buildings were all square and white, and the blinds were all green, and they were placed as near the road as possible, but notwithstanding these faults of form, color, and position, constituting crimes against Nature, the whole was fairly attractive. Do what they will to offend and deface the beauties of New England, and especially Vermont nature, the Philistines who inhabit its picturesque valleys cannot destroy the beautiful ever-varying outlines of its hills or the restful repose of its summer days. They have managed to slaughter its forests and to dry up its limpid mountain streams, but, with the consummation of those outrages, Nature calls a halt; and the Vandals leave off destroying because there is little left to destroy.

The “Farmer’s Home” proved to be an attractive family affair. The father, mother, son and daughter composed the entire _ménage_, and all were equally at home in the duties of their special departments. There was a tour of duty for each in the kitchen; but the energetic daughter was supreme in the “Dining-hall,” where she propelled its affairs with mechanical exactitude. Her unwritten motto was: “On time, or cold victuals.” She was a strict constructionist, and “cl’ared off the things” as soon as the last piece of pie had disappeared. But, as the English would say, she was not at all a bad sort. She was active, inquisitive, quaint, and direct,—had opinions upon all subjects, and expressed them freely. I have always believed I was her first serious anthropological study. At first, she accepted me with an immense qualification. My manifest bias in favor of animals was something new to her which she could not comprehend. To her practical mind, the petting of a dog and looking after his welfare was a perfect waste of time, while paying particular attention to the wants and care of a horse was something not to be thought of. I saw she was rapidly filling up to the bursting point with curiosity, but was too shy to ask the direct questions which she was anxious to put to me. As soon as occasion offered, I felt it my duty to give her an opportunity to free her mind, and, sitting out the rest of the “boarders” at my last “supper,” presented an opening for the point of the wedge to enter. By way of introduction, I mentioned my regrets at being compelled to leave the next morning.

“All the folks around here,” she frankly said, “will be sorry to hear it; you ain’t like anybody else we’ve ever had in this town, at least sence I can remember. Father and Tom, and all the rest of ’em that’s been watching of you, say you care more for critters than you do for human folks, and I think so too; ever sence I heard you talk to that dog of yourn I couldn’t make you out. We never had anything like that up here before, and one of the store fellers told me yesterday he thought you were one of them New York City chaps a little off, that had come on this ride for your health, and yit you talk sense about anything else except them critters of yourn, and that’s what puzzles the folks—to think that such a smart feller as you ’pear to be, should be clear gone off when you get to talking to the critters. And then there ain’t any sense in it, any way; you can talk to dogs and hosses all your life and never git an answer. They are dumb beasts, that’s all they be, and you can’t make ’em folks if you try a thousand years. I’ll bet anything you ain’t got a wife. If you had, you wouldn’t be talking all this nonsense to critters all the time; if you had one worth a cent, you’d stay to home and talk to her, and let the critters take care of themselves, same as other folks do. Nothing like a good wife to take such wrinkles out of a man’s head! Why don’t you get married anyway? Right here in this town there are a lot of first-rate girls, better educated than I be, been to the high-school, and got as good learning as any of the city women, all dying to git married, and you can take your choice right here now. If you had one of our nice girls you wouldn’t need to have that darn fool of a dog round all the time for company.”

The latter part of this mind-freeing was earnest and emphatic, and I discovered between the spoken lines the true cause of the outburst. It was as clear as the noonday sun that she had a very poor opinion of an individual who preferred the company of a dog to the fascinations of fair woman, and she had made up her mind to let me know what she thought.

I ignored the nice girl part of the argument, and startled her by asking if she were a Christian. “’Spose I am, I try to be. I don’t know much about it anyhow. What makes you ask such an all-fired silly question? All the folks round here are Christians; we ain’t heathens any mor’n city folks.”

“Then it follows as a matter of course, you being a Christian, that you believe the Creator made Heavens and the earth and all things therein, and you do not believe he made anything in vain. All of his creations we see or know anything of were made for a purpose. The domestic animals were intended for the use of human beings, and upon the list of those the horse stands first, because he is the most intelligent of the purely useful animals; but the dog is far ahead of him in every respect save physical power. His intelligence is of a high order, which entitles him to our respect, and he is the only animal that will leave his kind to associate with man; and there are thousands of instances recorded of his having sacrificed his life for those he loved. No other animal has ever been known to do that. The elephant, with his admitted capacity for acute reasoning, never defends his master unless ordered; on the contrary, he seldom misses an opportunity to kill those who have injured or offended him. The dog never does this; he bears no malice, and forgets and forgives injuries inflicted by those he loves, neither does he know distinction of condition or rank. He knows you are his master or mistress, and whether you are prince or peasant it matters not. The palace or the garret are the same to him, provided a kind master is to be found in either, and he shares with his master the feast or the crust with equal pleasure. The noble dog possesses the highest qualities. He gives you his loyal affection without reserve, never deceives you, and is true even unto death, and I hold we are indebted to him for giving us all that is good in his nature, for, the better you treat him, the more his fine qualities come to the surface. Am I not right?”

“Well, I swan; you’ve taken the breath all out of my body; I never heard such talk before. I don’t know what to say, and I can’t dispute you. You’ve got the whole thing by heart and let it out just like one of them revival exhorters that comes along here every once in a while. You’ve said a lot about animals I never heard before or thought of; nobody round here ever talks about ’em like you do. Why, you put the dog way up head of folks. From what you say, he’s ten times as decent as most men, and, if he could only talk, he would show us he could spell hard words and do the meanest sums in the ’rithmetic. At any rate, if dogs and horses and other sich like are as smart as you say they are, they ain’t got no feelings like we have—ain’t got sense enough to be sensitive and take on about pain and suffering like we do. You can’t make me b’leve any sich stuff as that anyhow.”

This is the point usually made by those who have never seriously considered the true nature and physical structure of animals. A cursory examination would prove to the most careless observer, that the organs and various parts of the human organization are duplicated in the animals, especially in those of the domestic sort. The two points of difference are in form of body and the four legs given to the lower orders instead of two. The heart, lungs, bones, muscles, nerves, blood-vessels and brain are in each about the same. In the animal, for want of speech, the power of the brain is an unknown quantity, and the absence of that faculty of giving expression to thought constitutes the greatest difference between the species. Give the higher of the lower animals the power of speech, and possibly some men would take rank as the lower animal.

All this I explained to my audience of one, and, in addition, asserted that a cruel punishment of a physical nature inflicted upon a human being, if bestowed upon a dog, a horse or an ox would produce the same amount of pain and suffering. If whipping is painless, why do all animals who have once been whipped jump aside and try to dodge the whip they see flourishing in the hands of those near them? The answer is, fear of pain. There is no other explanation of their action. Schoolboys dread the birch and ferule of the schoolmaster no more than a horse or an ox fears and dreads the whip of a driver.

“I declare this is all news to me,” my rural friend replied, “and you really have set me to thinking. I guess we ought to treat all sorts of animals, including the human, better than we do. I’ve been going to meeting sence I was old enough to go alone, and I never heard a minister say anything about loving animals and treating them decently—kinder like folks—do a lot of good if they did—’spose they think they ain’t paid for that sort of business and ’ave got all they can do to save the souls of sinners.”

This was the last attempt at pure missionary work in behalf of the lower orders. The pleasure part of the excursion was about to end, and on the morning of the morrow the business of returning to the starting point was to commence in earnest. The return was made by a short series of long days’ work, commencing early in the morning, running well into the day, with rest in the middle, starting off again late in the afternoon, and extending well into the evening. In three days the return was finished, the whole excursion had lasted nearly three weeks—three joyous weeks, never again to be duplicated.

The most pleasurable hours of the little tour came from the association with my four-footed servants and companions. The gradual unfolding of their intelligence and the rapid development of their affection were never-failing sources of pleasure. Towards the last my calico horse would leave his feed, no matter how fascinating to his taste the oats might be, to be in my society, and the watchful dog was never away from my side, night or day. At first he shared the stable with his companion, but soon after, whenever he was ordered out for the night, his anxious, silent pleadings became so tender and touching that I could not withstand them, and I consented to his sharing my room with me. At first he had the natural dog habit of rising at an inconveniently early hour, but after being admonished of the irregularity of his behavior, he would remain quiet until ordered out for his morning exercise.

Never before or since had I been blessed with more sincere and disinterested friends—always anxious to serve and, seemingly, perfectly happy only when in my society.

Within a week after our return came the final parting between us, and I have never had more stings of conscience than I felt when closing the door of the little paradise my confiding friends were never to enter again. I parted with them in sorrow, filled with anxiety for their future, as well I might have been, for early the ensuing autumn my calico friend became again a “circus horse” and was heard of no more, and the other resumed the role of “nobody’s dog” and went down to his soulless (?) finality wishing, beyond all doubt, for another taste of his lost paradise.

During the whole of the winter of 1862 and 1863, I was in camp with my command at Falmouth, in front of Fredericksburg. The army was resting after the colossal and tragic fiasco at Fredericksburg to recover a new supply of strength and courage for the encounter with unknown blunders to come; and, aside from doing as many drills as the mud would permit, consuming rations and drawing pay, there was little to do. The winter proved to be a period of weary inactivity, with no crowns of victory in sight.

Late one stormy afternoon in the month of January, 1863, the orderly announced a civilian stranger who desired an interview. He told the orderly that his name was of no consequence and that his business was personal. Upon his entering my tent, I discovered a complete embodiment of limp weariness and sorrow, a palpable wreck of something better in the past.

Upon being seated, he said: “I ’spose you don’t know me? Well, I don’t blame you much, I’ve so changed since then; we’ve had a great sorrow since your dog and horse scart that drove of cattle into the oats. Now I b’leve you remember, but you’d never guess I’m the same man, would you?”

I had to answer that the change was very great, and asked the cause.

“That’s partly what I am here for,” he replied. “You see, when the war first broke out, George, our oldest, you must remember him, a silent, good and thoughtful boy, was at the high school. All Vermont was alive with the right sort of feeling, and all the men and boys—and some of the women, I guess,—wanted to shoulder arms and go. We were expecting all the time to hear that George was going, but hoped the other way, and finally one morning in June he got out of the stage with his whole kit of books and clothes, and told his mother, whose eyes had already filled with tears, that he had come home to go; that all the big boys of the school had held a meeting, and agreed to enlist in the ‘Third,’ and he was going with them. Well, I thought his mother would sink into the ground then and there, but she didn’t. George, you know, was her favorite. He was always a reliable, duty-loving boy. She wiped her eyes, took him in her arms, and, while her heart was breaking, kissed him, and said: ‘I ‘spose you ought to go where right and your country calls, but it will be awful hard for me to part with you. I don’t know how I’m going to live with you in danger.’ The week he spent with us, I tell you, it was like a great shadow in that old house. His mother kept about, but her heart was breaking with terrible forebodings, and her eyes were always filling with tears. When he had stayed his week out, the last at the old home, we all drove over with him to the recruiting station, and saw him sign his name to the roll of Company ——, Third Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, ‘for three years, or during the war.’ In three weeks the regiment left for the field; we went over to see him off, and he was the only happy one of the family. We were filled with unspeakable sadness; we saw them march away, and, as the old flag disappeared round the corner of the road, his mother fainted, and fell into my arms. She never saw a well day after that, but kind of lived on like a machine, taking no interest in anything but the newspapers bringing news from the war.

“George was just as good a boy in the army as he had always been at home, wrote encouraging letters to his mother, filled with ideas about duty, patriotism, and all that. But it did no good. She had made up her mind she would never see him again, and, although alive, he was as good as dead almost to her. When the Winter ended, the Vermont troops went with the army to Yorktown, and then came the dreadful 16th of April—Lees’ Mills. Three days after the fight some one sent a Boston paper to us, which gave the news of the first advance having been made by Companies —— and —— of the Third, and the terrible slaughter of the men, but gave no names. His mother knew her son was killed, and two days later a letter from his Captain told us how well he had done his duty, and how bravely he had died. The strain was more than she could bear, she took to her bed, and at the end of five weeks we buried them side by side, and my happiness along with them. Now do you see why I’ve changed?”

After a slight pause, he resumed: “I forgot to tell you,—the other boy, the one who talked to you about the meeting-house steeple five hundred feet high, enlisted in the same company as soon as he got old enough, is sick in the hospital here now, and I want to take him back home, and that’s what I’m here about. I want you to help me to get him out of the Army. He was a new recruit when he saw his brother killed, and hasn’t been well since. You know he never was a strong boy, but he would go to war to be with George. He wouldn’t consent to his brother facing danger all the time, while he was safe at home. He’s all I’ve got left, except my old father, who can’t last much longer, and they tell me if I can get you to go with me to General —— he’ll order his discharge.”

The sad story—one of many I had heard, touched me deeply. But I could offer no consolation, such wounds as his were too deep to be reached by words. All I could do was to change the current of sad thoughts and extend the meagre hospitalities of the camp. Then the ride to the field hospital, the interview with the once bright, happy boy I had seen seven years before, now with the seal of death implanted upon his beautiful, honest and manly face, then to headquarters, the handing over of his discharge, and then the parting, with heavy heart, from one whose burden of sorrow I had been able to lighten.

Opportunities to do these acts of kindness for those kindred of the fallen, whose hearts were overburdened with mighty sorrows, were about the only rays of sunshine which ever invaded the tent life of those whose responsibilities were often more burdensome than the sorrows of others, which they were so often called upon to assuage.

In the summer of 1865, during another visit to my native town, a longing came over me to revisit the scene of the accident to the oats, and I searched in vain for two companions to take the places of those of twelve years before. But, so far as I could ascertain, there was not a known saddle horse in the county, and the race of nobody’s dogs had gone quite out of fashion; so I was compelled to adopt the “buggy,” and, along with it, between its “fills,” a lively and “spunky” little specimen of a Vermont Morgan, that learned after the first hours of driving that there was a kind friend holding the reins, and with whom, from that moment, cordial relations were established. A very easy drive carried me to the “old home,” about noon of the second day, and, as I drove up to the door, a kindly faced, frank-mannered woman of middle age came out of the house, and asked me to alight, hitch, and walk in. As I entered I asked where they all were? “Who do you mean by all?” queried my hostess. I answered, “The C——s who lived here twelve years ago.”

She took me to an open window, and, pointing to the top of a “Meeting House” spire that came just above the point of a rise in the ground, said: “Just at the bottom of that steeple you’ll find them all, save my uncle C——, the grandfather of the boys; they are all buried there, and, if you want to renew your acquaintance with them, you’ll have to go over there to do it. I’m the old maid of the whole family, and taught school until I came here right after Cousin George’s death—he was the last of the four—to take care of uncle, who was awfully broken up, and is to this day. I guess nothing but death will ever mend his broken heart. He wanders about with no object in life, always wishing for the end to come. He’s out in the fields somewhere; he will be here pretty soon and awful glad to see you. It seems to me he only cares now for those who knew the four who lie buried over there. He lives in the past altogether, and takes no interest in the present or future.”