Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/124

Rh "It is a wicked thing to confine an animal in a dark and closed car," said Miss Laura, trying to see her way down the steps through her tears.

The man put out his hand and helped her. "He's not suffered much, miss," he said, "don't you distress yourself. Now if you'd been a brakesman on a Chicago train, as I was a few years ago, and seen the animals run in for the stock yards, you might talk about cruelty. Cars that ought to hold a certain number of pigs, or sheep, or cattle, jammed full with twice as many, and half of 'em thrown out choked and smothered to death. I've seen a man running up and down, raging and swearing because the railway people hadn't let him get in to tend to his pigs on the road."

Miss Laura turned and looked at the man with a very white face. "Is it like that now?" she asked.

"No, no," he said, hastily. "It's better now. They've got new regulations about taking care of the stock, but mind you, miss, the cruelty to animals isn't all done on the railways. There's a great lot of dumb creatures suffering all round everywhere, and if they could speak, 'twould be a hard showing for some other people besides the railway men."

He lifted his cap and hurried down the platform, and Miss Laura, her face very much troubled, picked her way among the bits of coal and wood scattered about the platform, and went into the waiting room of the little station.

She took me up to the filter and let some water run in her hand, and gave it to me to lap. Then she sat down and I leaned my head against her knees, and she stroked my throat gently.

There were some people sitting about the room, and,