Phemie Frost's Experiences

by Ann S. Stephens

You will tell me, out of the kindness of your hearts, that these were sins of ignorance. Just so; and it is this ignorance, which is sometimes cruel as the grave, that Mr. Bergh is trying his best to enlighten. No child would do a cruel thing if it were made to understand the pain it is giving. Yet, sticking pins through flies, and spearing wasps to the wall, are about the first thing a smart baby learns to do.

Did you ever see a lot of boys going home from school, when a garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills the air with feeble hisses, trying, poor thing, to save its bruised and broken life to the last.

Does anybody tell the boys that this is brutal cruelty? No, even the Christian mother, who would not do an unkind thing to save her life, forgets that God makes snakes as well as ringdoves, and that pain is just as bitter to the snake as to the cooing bird.

Sisters, we are all wrong in leaving these things to men only. If we did our duty, and taught little children that even thoughtless cruelty is a sin, and that the fun which comes out of pain to any of God's creatures is a crime, there would not be much for Mr. Bergh and his noble society to do. The cruel instincts of a child become ferocious in the man. With such, men can best deal. I thank God that one brave spirit is found ready and able to protect the dumb creatures that are given us for blessings, not for victims.

While I am writing this, picture after picture comes up from my own past girlhood, and my heart stands still as I remember how ferocious a thirst for fun and ignorance can be in a child. How many sleepy-looking toads I have seen, with their backs all jewels, and their throats yellow gold, that asked nothing but a burdock leaf for shelter, and a few flies for food, crushed to death by boys who thought no harm, and only liked the sport of killing something.

Since then, I have learned that these little creatures are a great help to gardeners, and that wise men foster them with kindness and care.

Once, down by the trout-brook we know of, I saw a lot of children, busy as bees, doing something on the bank, where two or three boys were kneeling, and the rest looking on. Of course I went down to the brook, and, being a little mite of a creature, looked on, half frightened, half wondering.

The boys had caught a great frog, green as grass. He was, I have no doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in earnest. Some of the boys were eight and ten years old; but not one of them seemed to feel that they were doing a hideous thing. I remember feeling very sorry for the poor frog, but it was not till years and years after that I understood the horrible, lingering death these ignorant boys had tortured him with. Since then I have never thought of that sparkling trout stream, without a pain at my heart.

"Childish ignorance," I hear you say—for some of these boys were your own brothers, and meant no harm. But what right had they to be ignorant? They knew well enough that it was against the law to kill one another. Why were they not taught that the life that God gives to His meanest creature is as sacred as a good man's prayers; unless necessity calls for it, and then it must be taken with as little suffering as death can give?

Sisters, I am in earnest; the missionary spirit is strong upon me. I wish our Society to take up this subject with interest. What Mr. Bergh has been doing among men, we must do among the children of this generation. When ignorance is an excuse for cruelty, you and I and every woman of the land are wretches if we allow a child to sin because it knows no better. There is no great study necessary to work out a reform here. The mother who knows what is right knows how to impress it on her children; and if they play at death and destruction, she is the person most to blame.