[CHAPTER XV.]
That fall Master was elected to the legislature—whatever that is—and was gone pretty nearly all winter.
I did not like it at all; for though Chet dare not injure me outright, he was at times very disagreeable, and I never felt safe a minute about the other animals. I did hope he would go off and study medicine, as he sometimes talked of doing.
When Master came home to stay he seemed quite elated over some law they had made for the protection of dumb brutes, but he said it would be a long while before officials generally would be faithful in its enforcement.
That was an unusually busy spring with the doctors, and Chet managed the farm to suit himself. Among other barbarous things he did, and allowed to be done by Paddy, who had come to work for us, was tying the young calves to stakes and leaving them there without food or water for hours. Of course, at first there was a little grass for them to nibble, but this was soon gone. Often their ropes became wound around the stakes until they could only stand helpless, with their heads drawn closely down.
One pretty little heifer ("Rosebud," Bobby called her) was thus tied, and getting wound up, died a slow, torturous death. 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. Days it lingered there. A few times Carm and Paddy carried it a pail of skimmed milk or water, barely enough to prolong its agony, I thought. The supposition was that it had only hurt its leg, and would soon be better. Master was scarcely ever at home in daylight, and Bobby was made to believe the calf would soon be well. When they found it dead, its poor, parched tongue protruding from its mouth, and a look of mute reproach yet in its sightless eyes, they dragged it away as unconcernedly as if it had been a stick of wood.
Several times Chet tore suckling-calves from their mother's side and permitted rough men to lead, or rather drag, the pleading, frightened creatures off, paying no heed to the mother's wild agony unless to speak some hard, profane word to her.
Every living creature on the place soon learned to fear and hate him.