Children and Animals
The other day old Jack, my horse, was bitten by his next neighbor; he turned slowly, eyed his opponent, shifted his rope so that he had a little more room, turned very deliberately, and planted both heels in the offender's stomach. He will not be run upon.
From a time still further back comes a note in a like strain. In 1898 he was house physician in a children's hospital at Mt. Airy, Maryland, when he wrote:
A kitten has taken up with a poor cripple dying of muscular atrophy who cannot move. It stays with him all the time, and sleeps most of the day in his straw hat. To-night I saw the kitten curled up under the bed-clothes. It seems as if it were a gift of Providence that the little creature should attach itself to the child who needs it most.
Of another child:
The day she died she called for me all day, deposed the nurse who was sitting by her, and asked me to remain with her. She had to be held up on account of lack of breath; and I had a tiring hour of it before she died, but it seemed to make her happier and was no great sacrifice. Her friends arrived twenty minutes too late. It seems hard that Death will not wait the poor fraction of an hour, but so it is.
And here are some letters to his nephews and nieces which reveal his attitude both to children and to animals.
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