Velma Caldwell Melville

“ I pitied the poor thing, for I knew that she loved her young master despite his cruel treatment. It is the way with us horses.
He was home two months or more, and Topsy looked jaded and worn when he went away.
I wonder that men do not more often notice when their horses have a fretted look. It is a sure sign that they are being hurt in some way.
Our eyes and facial expressions speak louder than words, if only people cared to consult them.
I noticed a horse, not long since, whose countenance was distorted with pain, yet his owner paid no heed, only cracked the whip and crowded him on. ”

“ It is exceedingly to be regretted that vivisection is creeping into our common schools and lower institutions of learning. Nothing can be more useless and harmful, and it behooves patrons and school officers to be on the alert. We have enough of bloodshed and anarchy menacing our commonwealth without training our youth to disregard the rights of the helpless and inure them to the shedding of innocent blood. ”

“ But bad as barb-wire is, it is nothing to the fad for the over-draw check-rein that is shortening the lives of horses everywhere, to say nothing of the torture they endure while they do live.
Why people use it I cannot imagine, for anyone with half an eye knows that it ruins the looks of a horse.
Master says that he, for one, will never presume to improve on the works of the Creator, who is far more artistic than man, and understands the science of beauty perfectly. ”

“ Their coats become as cakes of ice, and they die by inches. Some die for want of water, some mired in the spring in their frantic rush for it, and so on. Wherever one goes after the snow melts, the sight that meets their eyes is dead carcases.
"The hardened beholder thinks only of the loss to the owner, but to the uninitiated, each gaunt form, with his sunken eyeballs and worn hoofs, tells a pathetic tale, and reminds them of the lingering tragedies that have been enacted there. ”

“ No matter how great the hurry when we stopped, he never neglected to blanket me, and blanketing with him does not mean merely to throw a robe or blanket loosely over a horse's back, but it means to put a thick covering that buttons or buckles over the chest and far up onto the neck. He grows righteously indignant every time he gets to speaking of people who think their duty done when the back of an animal is protected, while the part containing the lungs, etc.—the most delicate, susceptible part of the horse's anatomy—is left exposed to the pitiless blast. ”

“ From my earliest babyhood I was taught by loving hands to wear a halter and be led. I early learned to obey and not to fear. When once we horses learn a thing we almost cannot forget it; then, if we are only taught good things, we are all right.
It had not grown quite warm enough for Grim to go back to his bed on the porch, so he still slept in my manger, when we were startled one night by an unfamiliar step on the barn floor. Stealthily some one flashed a lantern into my stall and a strange hand rested on my back. ”

“ Many horses have told me, in tones from which all hope seemed gone, of the long hours of inexpressible torture they endure. They say, and I hear it told that the most eminent veterinary physicians in the world say the same, that the check-rein injures a horse from his head to his tail, from his shoulder to his hoof; it brings on disease and deformity. If a horse's neck has not naturally a fine curve, the rein is not going to remedy the matter. Forced curves are not elegant, and the most of the animals I have seen wearing it look like ganders when pursuing somebody. ”

“ Of course, one set of buyers did not deal in all these, but there were horse buyers, cattle buyers and so on.
When the horse buyers were coming, our barn, and even the sheds outside, used to be full of horses, many of them already sad and homesick.
People may think that dumb animals cannot be homesick, but I tell you they can. All there is of life, for the average domestic creature, is the comfort it takes resting at night in a familiar place, and eating and drinking where it is accustomed. We have few joys, and the future holds no hope. ”

“ Oh, it was pitiful, pitiful!
"One has to stand a good deal like that in this world," the big roan said, turning his face away, "and yet people think we dumb creatures have no feeling. I wish we hadn't. A while ago, the family let another cow and calf run together in the same way, and then butchered the little creature right before its mother's eyes. She has never been the same since; doesn't eat, and her milk isn't good. Poisoned with the grief and fretting, but the folks don't understand." ”

“ Many a day, and sometimes days at a time, she has gone without water because she could not find the tank. As I am here going to dismiss poor Topsy from my story, I will say that her master soon sold her and her colt. A few times since, I have seen her toiling along beside her mate, her sightless face wearing a blank, worried expression, and always that timid, frightened way with her. Once we had a little talk, and she told me that her life was a misery. She cannot learn to trust herself, and as she is only "Old Tops," no one takes any pains with her. ”

“ He denounced the vivisection professors as bloodthirsty scoundrels, who, under the pretense of making scientific research, are merely satisfying a bloodthirsty curiosity of their own. He said such men are never public benefactors, that, in truth, they care nothing about alleviating human ills or prolonging life. It is a mania with them to cut, cut, cut, torture, torture, torture. ”

“ When Master heard her, he said:
"You mean so barbarous, don't you?"
[Pg 87]
"Oh, deah, no," she answered, "all the nabobs and—and tony people have their horses that way."
"All the fools," muttered Master.
"What an old beah your uncle is," she said, poutingly, to Chet when Master was out of hearing.
"Oh—well, you must not mind Uncle Dick; he is cranky on some points, but not a bad fellow, after all, when one is in a tight place."
Cleo shrugged her bare shoulders—her shoulders were always bare—and resumed her plea to have poor Romeo and Juliet maimed and disfigured for life. ”

“ Horses broken by more mild, humane means—even ranchmen allow—make quieter, better servants. Then there is the branding of the ponies, without which the owners could not tell their own property. In accomplishing this, the animal is blindfolded and led up to a roaring fire, where a man with a red-hot branding iron awaits him. Quick as a flash, there is a sickening odor of burning hair and flesh, and the frantic animal goes forth with his owner's initials, mark or whatever it may be, indelibly branded on him. ”

“ Teach humanity to children is the advice of Dandy.
Tommy was put in jail, Burr said, to await trial, but somehow broke out and escaped.
Where he is now, I don't know, but some think his mother does. She was quite broken down with grief and shame after that dreadful event, and Dr. Fred was bitter against her because she had been so blind and indulgent.
"I am always so driven with business," he said, "but you have plenty of hired help, and nothing to do but to look after the children." ”

“ All was well so long as he did not get angry, but he lost his temper on the slightest provocation, and ofttimes without any. Especially was he hard on anything in his power.
One morning I saw him get angry at a cow, because she had wandered into a lot where she did not belong. Grabbing hold of a pitchfork, he gave chase. Round and round the lot the frightened creature ran, too confused to see the narrow gateway, Chet jabbing the fork into her at almost every step. The longer the chase continued the madder he got and the less chance the cow had for escape. ”

“ Men feed us things that burn and irritate our stomachs just as salt fish does theirs. They drink when they are thirsty if that is every few minutes, but with an equal longing for water we must wait their convenience, if that is all day.
We are ofttimes sick and feverish, too, just the same as people, but we can't speak, and so we must endure the torture, after being driven furiously through the dust and under a pelting sun. ”

“ Park caught the bridle with a jerk that almost threw me to the ground, and while I was recovering myself he slid from his horse. Tying the latter by the roadside, he removed the saddle, and proceeded to give me the dreadfulest whipping, with the whip he carried.
I had never been really whipped before in my life, and I scarcely know which hurt me the worst, the lash or the injustice and humiliation; probably the lash, though, for it cut mercilessly into the sore.
Suddenly Minnie screamed:
"Don't, don't, Park; just see the blood! Oh, what will the doctor say?" ”

“ Fred bade him mind his own business and let other people's property alone.
Dr. Dick told him that so long as a man did not abuse his property, he proposed to let it alone; but that when a living creature was being imposed on and abused, that he had a right—a God-given right—to interfere, so long as he did not injure the man or make him poorer. ”

“ After this event he put all the young animals in a small, barren lot, where the scenes of the days of the Stringers were re-enacted. Day and night there were piteous calls for something besides dry hay. Once a day a large trough was filled with water, but this the older, stronger animals quickly drank up, and the younger, weaker ones had to go without.
One calf had its leg broken in a vain effort to slake its burning thirst. With a moan of pain it dragged itself away to a fence corner and sank exhausted. ”

“ Then, when Saturday night comes, the water is shut off, and the poor animals in the stockyards get no more until Monday; and of all dreary, hot, dusty places on earth those stockyards take the lead.
"But the worst of all is the cruelties of the slaughter houses. Hundreds of cattle crowded around awaiting their turn to be butchered, and gazing with staring eyes at their mates' bloody fate. You know how the smell of blood terrifies such creatures. Their whole systems are doubtless poisoned with the agony. Such meat cannot be healthy. ”

“ I tell you I used to pity even the chickens on that place, and, in conversation with other animals, there and elsewhere, I have found that the Stringers represent the majority of farmers. There are so many what they call "big things," to attend to, that there is no time for either attending to dumb creatures' comforts or stopping the small leaks in the grain sacks.
I am not surprised at all that so many farmers die poor, and so many go fretting through life declaring that farming don't pay. It will never pay the great "Stringer" majority. ”

“ Why do some men succeed in almost any kind of drumming, while others fail?
Almost all business men are salesmen in some form or other. There is an old maxim: "When you buy keep one eye on the goods and the other on the seller; when you sell keep both eyes on the buyer." ”

“ If I might gain the ear of man for an hour, I could surely convince him that inhumanity is the poorest kind of business imaginable; that it is unprofitable for the life that now is and for the one that is to come ”

“ Blacksmiths are, as a class, the most unenlightened, pig-headed men in the world. I can trace the history of this poor beast's sufferings right down. First some man, with more theory than sense, took her feet, perfect from the hand of the Creator, who, knowing enough to make a horse, knew enough to make its feet, and with his knife trimmed the frog and thinned the sole until he could feel it yield when he pressed on it. ”

“ Of course, the former got the worst of it, because man is the stronger, in the only sense that tells, and the latter would tie him short and then whip him or kick him. Chet had no judgment, and being exceedingly passionate, he whipped the colt for doing what Park taught her.
Meanwhile Mrs. Wallace's sister, Minnie Winters, had become almost a member of the family. She was not very old nor ugly, and professed the most unlimited admiration for "that dear little Dandy," as she gushingly termed me, though why she called me "little" I can't imagine, and I did not like it either. ”

“ What's the fun or comfort in living, anyhow? You give your time, strength and life for the little you can eat (when you happen to get that) , and if you live past your usefulness you're turned out to starve and freeze. Men are working for themselves and laying by for old age, but we, who work much harder, have nothing but starvation and death in anticipation. ”

“ Fred says there is no Bible for it, but Dick says that they could not mention everything in one book. He says, too, that while he believes everything to be true that is in the Bible, at the same time he knows many things to be true that are not there; then he tells about a good old minister, who, when asked to lend his influence in the organization of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, replied that if Paul had written a chapter on the subject he would consider it worth his while to countenance the movement, but as he didn't, he must be excused. ”

“ Dick stays away long," Herman replied.
Speaking of horse-races reminds me to say that if all race-horses, or those that are made to run, could tell their stories they would fill volumes with tales of injustice and suffering. All animals will, if humanely treated, do their best for their masters; but a kind word and reassuring pat will go much further toward winning a race than all the spurs and curses in the world. ”