The Island of Faith | Page 7

and the Young Doctor would have
chuckled to hear her tone. "You wicked child, what are you doing?"
Without waiting for an answer she knelt beside the pitiful little animal
that was tied to the bench, and with trembling fingers unloosed the cord
that held it, noting as she did so how its bones showed, even through its
coat of fur. When it was at liberty she gathered it close to her breast and
turned to face the boy.
He had not tried to run away. Even with the anger surging through her,
Rose-Marie admitted that the child was not--in one sense--a coward. He
had waited, brazenly perhaps, to hear what she had to say. With blazing
eyes she said it:
"Why," she questioned, and the anger that made her eyes blaze also put
a tremor into her voice, "why were you deliberately hurting this kitten?
Don't you know that kittens can feel pain just as much as you can feel
pain? Don't you know that it is wicked to make anything suffer? Why
were you so wicked?"
The boy looked up at her with sullen, dark eyes. The grim twist at one
corner of his mouth became more pronounced.
"Aw," he said gruffly, "why don't yer mind yer own business?"
If Rose-Marie's hands had been free, she would have taken the boy
suddenly and firmly by both shoulders. She felt an overwhelming
desire to shake him--to shake him until his teeth chattered. But both of
her hands were busy, soothing the gray kitten that shivered against her
breast.
"I am minding my own business," she told the boy. "It's my business to
give help where it's needed, and this kitten," she cuddled it closer,
"certainly needed help! Haven't you ever been told that you should be
kind? Like," she faltered, "like Jesus was kind? He wouldn't have hurt
anything. He loved animals--and He loved boys, too. Why don't you try
to be the sort of a boy He could love? Why do you try to be bad--to do
wrong things?"
The eyes of the child were even more sullen--the twist of his mouth

was even more grim as he listened to Rose-Marie. But when she had
finished speaking, he answered her--and still he did not try to run away.
"Wot," he questioned, almost in the words of the Young Doctor, "wot
do you know about things that's right an' things that's wrong? It ain't
bad t' hurt animals--not if they're little enough so as they ain't able t'
hurt you!"
Rose-Marie sat down, very suddenly, upon the bench. In all of her
life--her sheltered, glad life--she had never heard such a brutal creed
spoken, and from the lips of a child! Her eyes, searching his face, saw
that he was not trying to be funny, or saucy, or smart. Curiously enough
she noted that he was quite sincere--that, to him, the torturing of a
kitten was only a part of the day with its various struggles and
amusements. When she spoke again her tone was gentle--as gentle as
the tone with which the other slum children, who came to the
Settlement House, were familiar.
"Whoever told you," she questioned, "that it's not wrong to hurt an
animal, so long as it can't fight back?"
The boy eyed her strangely. Rose-Marie could almost detect a gleam of
latent interest in his dark eyes. And then, as if he had gained a sort of
confidence in her, he answered.
"Nobody never told me," he said gruffly. "But I know."
The kitten against Rose-Marie's breast cried piteously. Perhaps it was
the hopelessness of the cry that made her want so desperately to make
the boy understand. Conquering the loathing she had felt toward him
she managed the ghost of a smile.
"I wish," she said, and the smile became firmer, brighter, as she said it,
"I wish that you'd sit down, here, beside me. I want to tell you about the
animals that I've had for pets--and about how they loved me. I had a
white dog once; his name was Dick. He used to go to the store for me,
he used to carry my bundles home in his mouth--and he did tricks--"
The boy had seated himself, gingerly, on the bench. He interrupted her,
and his voice was eager.
"Did yer have t' beat him," he questioned, "t' make him do the tricks?
Did he bleed when yer beat him?"
Again Rose-Marie gasped. She leaned forward until her face was on a
level with the boy's face.
"Why," she asked him, "do you think that the only way to teach an

animal is to teach him by cruelty? I taught my dog tricks by being kind
and sweet to him. Why do you talk of beatings--I couldn't hurt anything,
even if I