A Country Idyl, and Other StoriesBolton, Sarah Knowles
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A Country Idyl, and Other Stories
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
“I’ll see that he doesn’t starve,” said the woman. “Will the Society
find a home for him?”
“Oh, no, they can’t find homes for so many as they take off the
streets! They’ll kill him.”
“He isn’t to blame for not being licensed. I don’t see the use of
the license law, because it means the death of so many thousands of
animals.”
“Neither do I,” said the kind-hearted policeman. “Poor folks can’t
always pay the fee. I love my dog, and he’s a great comfort to my
children. But I don’t make the law. I only help to enforce it.”
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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