I was born in a stable on the outskirts of a small town. The first thing I remember was lying close to my mother and being very snug and warm. The next thing I remember was being always hungry. I am very unwilling to say much about my early life. I have lived so long in a family where there is never a harsh word spoken, and where no one thinks of ill-treating anybody or anything, that it seems almost wrong even to think or speak of such a matter as hurting a poor dumb beast.

The man that owned my mother was a milkman. He kept one horse and three cows, and he had a shaky old cart that he used to put his milk-cans in. I don’t think there can be a worse man in the world than that milkman. He used to beat and starve my mother. I have seen him use his heavy whip to punish her. When I got older I asked her why she did not run away. She said she did not wish to; but I soon found out that the reason that she did not run away was because she loved her master. Cruel and savage as he was, she yet loved him, and I believe she would have laid down her life for him.

One reason for our master’s cruelty was his idleness. After he went his rounds in the morning with his milk-cans, he had nothing to do till late in the afternoon but take care of his stable and yard. If he had kept them clean, it would have taken up all his time; but he never did anything to make his home neat and pleasant.

My mother and I slept on a heap of straw in the corner of the stable, and when she heard his step in the morning she always roused me, so that we could run out as soon as he opened the stable door. He always aimed a kick at us as we passed, but my mother taught me how to dodge him.

After our master put the horse in the cart, and took in the cans, he set out on his rounds. My mother always went with him. I used to ask her why she followed such a man, and she would say that sometimes she got a bone from the different houses they stopped at. But that was not the whole reason. She liked the master so much, that in spite of his cruelty she wanted to be with him.

I had not her sweet and patient disposition, and I would not go with her. I watched her out of sight, and then ran up to the house to see if the master’s wife had any scraps for me. I nearly always got something, for she pitied me, and often gave me a kind word or look with the bits of food that she threw to me.

I had a number of brothers and sisters—six in all. One rainy day when we were eight weeks old the master, followed by two or three of his ragged, dirty children, came into the stable, and looked at us. Then he began to swear because we were so ugly, and said if we had been good looking, he might have sold some of us. Mother watched him anxiously, fearing some danger to her puppies, and looked up at him pleadingly. It only made him swear the more. He took one puppy after another, and right there, before his children and my poor distracted mother, put an end to their lives. It was very terrible. I lay weak and trembling, expecting every instant that my turn would come next. I don’t know why he spared me. I was the only one left.

My mother never seemed the same after this. She was weak and miserable. And though she was only four years old, she seemed like an old dog. She could not run after the master, and she lay on our heap of straw, only turning over with her nose the scraps of food I brought her to eat. One day she licked me gently, wagged her tail, and died.

As I sat by her, feeling lonely and miserable, my master came into the stable. I could not bear to look at him. He had killed my mother. There she lay, a little gaunt, scarred creature, starved and worried to death by him. She would never again look kindly at me, or curl up to me at night to keep me warm. Oh, how I hated her murderer! Still I kept quiet till he walked up to me and kicked at me. My heart was nearly broken, and I could stand no more. I flew at him and gave him a savage bite on the ankle.

“Oho!” he said. “So you are going to be a fighter, are you? I’ll fix you for that.” He seized me by the back of the neck and carried me out to the yard where a log lay on the ground. “Tom,” he called to one of his children, “bring me the hatchet!”

He laid my head on the log and pressed one hand on my struggling body. There was a quick, dreadful pain, and he had cut off my ear close to my head. Then he cut off the other ear, and turning me swiftly round, cut off my tail. Then he let me go, and stood looking at me as I rolled on the ground and yelped in agony. He was in such a passion that he did not think that people passing on the street might hear me.

There was a young man going by. He heard my screams, and hurrying up the path stood among us before the master caught sight of him.

In the midst of my pain, I heard the young man say, fiercely, “What have you been doing to that dog?”

“I’ve been cutting his ears, for fighting, my young gentleman,” said my master; “there is no law to prevent that, is there?”

“And there is no law to prevent me from taking a dog away from such a cruel owner, either,” cried the young man; and giving the master an angry look, he snatched me up in his arms, and walked down the path and out of the gate.

I was moaning with pain, but still I looked up occasionally to see which way we were going. We took the road to the town and stopped in front of a pleasant-looking home. Carrying me gently in his arms, the young man went up a walk leading to the back of the house. There was a small stable there. He went into it and put me down on the floor. Some boys were playing about the stable, and I heard them say, in horrified tones, “Oh, Cousin Harry, what is the matter with that dog?”

“Hush,” he said. “Don’t say anything. You, Jack, go down to the kitchen and ask Mary for a basin of warm water and a sponge, and don’t let your mother or Laura hear you.”

A few minutes later the young man had bathed my ears and tail, and had rubbed something on them that was cool and pleasant, and had bandaged them firmly with strips of cotton. I felt much better and was able to look about me.

Presently one of the boys cried out, “Here is Laura.” A young girl, holding up one hand to shade her eyes from the sun, was coming up the walk that led from the house to the stable. I thought then that I never had seen such a beautiful girl, and I think so still. She was tall and slender, and had lovely brown eyes and brown hair, and a sweet smile, and just to look at her was enough to make one love her.

“Why, what a funny dog!” she said, and stopped short and looked at me. Up to this, I had not thought what a queer-looking sight I must be. Now I twisted round my head, saw the white bandage on my tail, and knowing I was not a fit spectacle for a pretty young lady like that, I slunk into a corner.

“Poor doggie, have I hurt your feelings?” she said. “What is the matter with your head, good dog?”

“Dear Laura,” said the young man, coming up, “he got hurt, and I have been bandaging him.”

“Who hurt him?”

“I would rather not tell you.”

“But I wish to know.” Her voice was as gentle as ever, but she spoke so decidedly that the young man was obliged to tell her everything. All the time he was speaking she kept touching me gently with her fingers. When he had finished his account of rescuing me from the master, she said quietly:—

“You will have the man punished?”

“What is the use? That won’t stop him from being cruel.”

“It will put a check on his cruelty.”

“I don’t think it would do any good,” said the young man.

“Cousin Harry!” and the young girl stood up very straight and tall, her brown eyes flashing, and one hand pointing at me. “That animal has been wronged; it looks to you to right it. The coward who has maimed it for life should be punished. A child has a voice to tell its wrong, —a poor, dumb creature must suffer in silence; in bitter, bitter silence. And you are doing the man himself an injustice. If he is bad enough to illtreat his dog, he will illtreat his wife and children. If he is checked and punished now for his cruelty, he may reform. And even if his wicked heart is not changed, he will be obliged to treat them with outward kindness through fear of punishment. I want you to report that man immediately. I shall go with you if you like.”

“Very well,” he said, and together they went off to the house.

The boys came and bent over me, as I lay on the floor in the corner. I wasn’t much used to boys, and I didn’t know how they would treat me. It seemed very strange to have them pat me, and call me “good dog.” No one had ever said that to me before to-day.

One of them said, “What did Cousin Harry say the dog’s name was?”

“Joe,” answered another boy.

“We might call him ‘Ugly Joe,’ then,” said a lad with a round fat face and laughing eyes.

“I don’t think Laura would like that,” said Jack, coming up behind him. “You see,” he went on, “if you call him ‘Ugly Joe,’ she will say that you are wounding the dog’s feelings. ‘Beautiful Joe’ would be more to her liking.”

A shout went up from the boys. I don’t wonder they laughed. Plain-looking I naturally was; but I must have been hideous in those bandages.

“‘Beautiful,’ then, let it be,” they cried. “Let us go and tell mother, and ask her to give us something for our beauty to eat,” and they all trooped out of the stable.

—Marshall Saunders.

By permission of the Standard Publishing Co.