A Country Idyl, and Other Stories

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

“What is done with the license money? It makes so much heartache it ought to do great good.”

“I’ve heard that it is given sometimes to public schools and to libraries to buy books on kindness to animals, and sometimes to the Humane Society so that they can pay men to catch and kill unlicensed dogs. You see, the licensed dogs help to kill the unlicensed and homeless,” said the man.

“I should think a better way would be to provide homes for the really homeless instead of killing them. I think that we have a duty to animals, seeing that they are under our protection.”

The policeman told the S. P. C. A. that a black unlicensed dog was howling on the steps of a vacant house because his little friend had died. Two officers in a big wagon hastened to the spot, caught him, and threw him in with a score of other animals which they had seized on the street.

Douglas cowered in the corner, and wondered what new sorrow had befallen him. The other poor things were as frightened as himself. Two were black and white puppies scarcely bigger than kittens, and two were pretty black-and-tan pets. A large mastiff looked out of her great brown eyes, trembling from head to foot. One shepherd dog was poor and thin, but most looked well cared for, only they had no collars, and their owners had not paid their license fee.

The wagon soon reached a barn-like structure, and the animals were hastily emptied into a pen with sawdust on the floor. What was in store for them they could only guess. After a time they were offered a mixture of meal and meat, but most were too frightened to eat.

All the next day they listened for footsteps, hoping that some friend would come for them. Douglas lay in the corner and expected nobody. Miss Benson did not know where he was, and Teddy had never come back when he howled for him.

There was a large pen adjoining that of Douglas, and this was filled with dogs—fox-terriers, some black like himself, and several yellow ones. Cats, many of them large and handsome, were in cages about the room. Some animals had been brought to the pound, or refuge, by persons who did not or could not take the trouble to find homes for them. An advertisement in the paper saying that a dog had been found and would be given to a good home would in almost every case have met with responses, but this cost a little money and time.

A boy brought in two pretty creatures, one red and the other yellow, which he said he had found without collars. A woman had hired him and other children by paying each a few cents to do this work, which meant almost certain death to animals, believing, probably, that she was doing good.

Late in the afternoon Douglas witnessed a strange, sad sight. Every cat, fifty or more, was thrown into a large cage, and poisonous gas turned in upon them. The terrified creatures huddled together, as though they knew their helplessness in the hands of their destroyers, and died.