They were lean calves, and Miss Laura asked her aunt why all the nice milk they had taken had not made them fat. "The fat will come all in good time," said Mrs. Wood. "A fat calf makes a poor cow, and a fat, small calf isn't profitable to fit for sending to the butcher. It's better to have a bony one and fatten it. If you come here next summer, you'll see a fine show of young cattle, with fat sides, and big, open horns, and a good coat of hair. Can you imagine," she went on, indignantly, "that any one could be cruel enough to torture such a harmless creature as a calf?"
"No, indeed," replied Miss Laura. "Who has been doing it?"
"Who has been doing it?" repeated Mrs. Wood, bitterly; "they are doing it all the time. Do you know what makes the nice, white veal one gets in big cities? The calves are bled to death. They linger for hours, and moan their lives away. The first time I heard it, I was so angry that I cried for a day, and made John promise that he'd never send another animal of his to a big city to be killed. That's why all of our stock goes to Hoytville, and small country places. Oh, those big cities are awful places, Laura. It seems to me that it makes people wicked to huddle them together. I'd rather live in a desert than a city. There's Ch--o. Every night since I've been there I pray to the Lord either to change the hearts of some of the wicked people in it, or to destroy them off the face of the earth. You know three years ago I got run down, and your uncle said I'd got to have a change, so he sent me off to my brother's in Ch--o. I stayed and enjoyed myself pretty well, for it is a wonderful city, till one day some Western men came in, who had been visiting the slaughter houses outside the city. I sat and listened to their talk, and it seemed to me that I was hearing the description of a great battle. These men were cattle dealers, and had been sending stock to Ch--o, and they were furious that men, in their rage for wealth, would so utterly ignore and trample on all decent and humane feelings as to torture animals as the Ch--o men were doing.
"It is too dreadful to repeat the sights they saw. I listened till they were describing Texan steers kicking in agony under the torture that was practised, and then I gave a loud scream, and fainted dead away. They had to send for your uncle, and he brought me home, and for days and days I heard nothing but shouting and swearing, and saw animals dripping with blood, and crying and moaning in their anguish, and now, Laura, if you'd lay down a bit of Ch------o meat, and cover it with gold, I'd spurn it from me. But what am I saying? you're as white as a sheet. Come and see the cow stable. John's just had it whitewashed."
Miss Laura took her aunt's arm, and I walked slowly behind them. The cow stable was a long building, well-built, and with no chinks in the walls, as Jenkins's stable had. There were large windows where the afternoon sun came streaming in, and a number of ventilators, and a great many stalls. A pipe of water ran through the stalls from one end of the stable to the other. The floor was covered with sawdust and leaves, and the ceiling and tops of the walls were whitewashed. Mrs. Wood said that her husband would not have the walls a glare of white right down to the floor, because he thought it injured the animals' eyes. So the lower parts of the walls were stained a dark, brown color.
There were doors at each end of the stable, and just now they stood open, and a gentle breeze was blowing through, but Mrs. Wood said that when the cattle stood in the stalls, both doors were never allowed to be open at the same time. Mr. Wood was most particular to have no drafts blowing upon his cattle. He would not have them chilled, and he would not have them overheated. One thing was as bad as the other. And during the winter they were never allowed to drink icy water. He took the chill off the water for his cows, just as Mrs. Wood did for her hens.
"You know, Laura," Mrs. Wood went on, "that when cows are kept dry and warm, they eat less than when they are cold and wet. They are so warm-blooded that if they are cold, they have to eat a great deal to keep up the heat of their bodies, so it pays better to house and feed them well. They like quiet, too. I never knew that till I married your uncle. On our farm, the boys always shouted and screamed at the cows when they were driving them, and sometimes they made them run. They're never allowed to do that here."
"I have noticed how quiet this farm seems," said Miss Laura. "You have so many men about, and yet there is so little noise."
"Your uncle whistles a great deal," said Mrs. Wood. "Have you noticed that? He whistles when he's about his work, and then he has a calling whistle that nearly all of the animals know, and the men run when they hear it. You'd see every cow in this stable turn its head, if he whistled in a certain way outside. He says that he got into the way of doing it when he was a boy and went for his father's cows. He trained them so that he'd just stand in the pasture and whistle, and they'd come to him. I believe the first thing that inclined me to him was his clear, happy whistle. I'd hear him from our house away down on the road, jogging along with his cart, or driving in his buggy. He says there is no need of screaming at any animal. It only frightens and angers them. They will mind much better if you speak clearly and distinctly. He says there is only one thing an animal hates more than to be shouted at, and that's to be crept on--to have a person sneak up to it and startle it. John says many a man is kicked, because he comes up to his horse like a thief. A startled animal's first instinct is to defend itself. A dog will spring at you, and a horse will let his heels fly. John always speaks or whistles to let the stock know when he's approaching."
"Where is uncle this afternoon?" asked Miss Laura.