KINDNESS TO THE HELPLESS.
By Sydney Dayre
“Don’t do that, George,” said his mother, looking up from her washtub with a troubled face. “Don’t torment that gopher.” “Ho! What hurt does it do?” “It hurts it and it hurts me, too. It ought to hurt you to give pain to such a poor little helpless thing.” George laughed as he gave another jerk to a string which was tied in a slipknot around the neck of a ground squirrel. “Why, mother, these things are regular pests and ought to be killed, every one of them. If I let them live and increase, we shouldn’t have a thing left in the garden.” “Perhaps so. It is not wrong to kill anything that does mischief. But it is cruel and wicked to give them any more pain than can be helped.” George stooped down and loosened the string around the gopher’s neck just enough to keep the little creature from choking, and thus ending its misery, as he went on:— “I’m bound to clean out that gopher hole back in the brush lot. It’s ever so much fun to set a snare for ’em. You came to get a smell of fresh air, didn’t you, my hearty, and to nibble away at the beets and turnips, hey? And the first thing you knew you ran your nose into my snare, and found yourself whipped up—so! ” Another jerk swung the gopher as high as George’s head, and his mother turned angrily from her work. “George, make an end of that poor little thing at once.” He always obeyed when she spoke like that. The gopher was mercifully set free from suffering, after which George set another trap and left it to take care of itself, while he came and emptied the wash water for his mother. “If I only could get a good place to work, you wouldn’t have to work so hard, mother,” he said, in a softer voice than one would have thought him capable of. He looked pityingly at her as she sat down, with a weary look on her face, for a few moments’ rest. “No, my boy, I’m sure you’d help me all you could.” “Yes, I would. Get out of the way there, I say!” He picked up a stone, and flung it at the head of a poor old cow as she tried to reach a few green leaves which hung over the garden fence. “Jim Blake told me,” said George, sitting down by his mother for a moment, “that Mr. Russell’s been looking for a boy to help take care of his horses.” “That would be a good thing for you,” said his mother eagerly. “I guess it would. It’s a splendid place up at the grove. Why, the stable’s lots finer’n this house, and everything so nice and handy about it. And Mr. Russell’s easy on his hired folks, they say.” “And it’s so near that you could be home nights.” “Yes, I believe I’ll go up town now and find Jim Blake, and ask him if he won’t speak to Mr. Russell for me. Jim knows I can do stable work well.” George strayed up the village street, keeping his quick eye on the alert for any odd bit of work which might fall in his way. A gentleman rode up to the doctor’s office, and George walked toward him as he looked for some one to hold his horse. “My horse is pretty warm and I don’t like to tie him,” said the gentleman. “Can you walk him about for a few minutes?” George willingly took the bridle and walked up and down the block, greatly admiring the horse and his equipments. “This is the kind of a horse I’m going to have when I’m a man,” he said. “Big and plump and plucky, and a fine fellow to go, if I know the look of a horse. My, what a fine saddle that is! Must ’a’ cost a lot o’ money. This horse is every bit as handsome as Mr. Russell’s span o’ grays, or handsomer—yes,” eyeing the horse critically. “I always did like sorrels better than grays because you can shine ’em up so. You never can get a real good shine on a gray. Get out, there.” A large dog in running across the street came very near the spirited horse, which reared a little with a quick start backwards. George gave the dog a violent kick, sending the poor animal down the street howling with pain. The next moment he jerked cruelly once or twice upon the bit, saying impatiently:— “Keep still there, will you? You don’t think I’m going to prance all over the street to hold to you, do you?” The owner of the horse came out and released George with a fair payment for his trouble. He went on and saw Jim Blake, who promised that he would do all he could to induce Mr. Russell to hire him. George was returning from his gopher trap the next morning, when he heard a call from his mother. As she came around a shed into the front yard, she met him. “Mr. Russell is here asking for you,” she said in a tone of great interest. “He says he’s been spoken to about you and wants to talk to you about his stable work. I do believe he means to hire you.” George was just coming into sight of a gentlemen who stood at the door of the house, and he flung a gasping, half-dead gopher into the bushes as he took off his hat and came near. Mr. Russell turned a pleasant face towards her, but as George advanced he looked keenly at him, and hesitated a moment before speaking. “You are wanting a place to help about horses, I believe,” he said coldly. “Yes, sir,” said George anxiously. “I’ll do my very best to please you, sir, if you’ll try me.” “Well,” said Mr. Russell, “if I find that I need you, I’ll send for you. Good-morning.” He walked away and mounted his horse, leaving mother and son gazing wistfully after him. “Why,” said she, with a look of great surprise and disappointment, “I can’t understand him. He talked to me so pleasantly about you, and thought you’d do for the place.” “See, he wants to speak to me again,” said George, moving towards Mr. Russell, who had stopped and was looking back. “I think I might as well say what I want to say now,” said Mr. Russell, “although I did not think best to say it before your mother. I have a great many animals and birds about my place, for I am fond of such things, and I never could have any one among them whom I could not feel sure would be kind and gentle with them.” “I always would be, sir,” said George. “Perhaps so, but I want to have only people whose natural instinct would forbid their ill-treating a dumb creature, whether they were observed or not. You are the boy who was leading a horse in front of Dr. Harris’ office yesterday?” “Yes, sir,” said George, his heart sinking as he realized that he had, while little dreaming that sharp eyes were taking heed of his actions, destroyed his chance of a good situation. “I was in a store opposite and saw your treatment of the dog and of the horse. If I had known you were the boy who was recommended to me, I need not have come here to-day; but since I have, let me advise you to cultivate a spirit of kindness to animals. If you think a little, you will see that only a coward and a bully could ever take pleasure in giving pain to anything so helpless as to be unable to protect itself against him. Good-morning.”—N. Y. Observer.