SLUMBER-TOWN TALES
(Trademark Registered)

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THE TALE OF
MISTAH MULE

BY
ARTHUR SCOTT BAILEY

PUBLISHERS
GROSSET & DUNLAP
NEW YORK

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Made in the United States of America

There was a great flurry in the farmyard. Old dog Spot was yelping; Henrietta Hen was clucking; Turkey Proudfoot was gobbling; Grunty Pig was squealing.

“For pity’s sake! What has happened?” Miss Kitty Cat asked the old horse Ebenezer, who stood tied to a hitching-post near the woodshed steps.

Ebenezer switched his tail at a fly on his flank before he spoke.

“Didn’t you see what Farmer Green led[8] into the barn a few minutes ago?” he inquired.

“No! What was it?” Miss Kitty answered eagerly.

The old horse Ebenezer yawned, as if there was something that made him very, very weary.

“It was a most peculiar person,” he told Miss Kitty Cat. “I made myself known to him; and asked him his name. He said it was ‘Mistah Mule.’ And then what do you think he did?”

Miss Kitty couldn’t guess.

“He tried to kick me,” said old Ebenezer in a tone of great disgust.

“Is he going to live here? Or is he only a guest?” Miss Kitty Cat wanted to know.

“He’s here to stay until Farmer Green gets tired of him,” Ebenezer explained. “The worst of it is, he’s going to have a[9] stall right next to mine. I know already that I shall not enjoy having him as a next-door neighbor.”

All at once there was a great commotion in the barn. First came a thumping, pounding noise. Then Farmer Green’s voice rose above the racket. And next followed an odd sound, “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”

“What’s that?” Miss Kitty Cat cried.

“It’s Mistah Mule,” Ebenezer told her. “He’s laughing. I wonder what the joke is.”

At that moment old dog Spot came scurrying out of the barn. He had his tail tucked between his legs; and his face wore a frightened look.

“What’s the joke?” the horse Ebenezer called to him.

“Mistah Mule just kicked Farmer Green,” Spot yelped. “And then Mistah[10] Mule laughed. Didn’t you hear him?”

Ebenezer nodded.

“Did Farmer Green laugh at the joke too?” asked Miss Kitty Cat.

“He did not,” old Spot howled. “He was so angry that he scared me; though goodness knows I had nothing to do with the affair. I was merely an onlooker.”

“Are you sure you didn’t nip at Mistah Mule’s heels?” the horse inquired.

“Not I!” Spot assured him. “A good many years ago I went too near a Mule’s heels down at the village. And I’ve never forgotten what happened.”

Farmer Green’s old horse, Ebenezer, stood in the barn and gazed none too pleasantly over the partition at his new neighbor in the next stall.

His neighbor, Mistah Mule, cocked one of his black ears at Ebenezer.

“Ole hoss,” he said with something like a grin, “I and you is goin’ to be hitched up together in the mornin’.”

This news almost took Ebenezer’s breath away.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Is Farmer Green going to work us in double harness? I—I can hardly believe it.”

[12]“That what he done told his boy,” Mistah Mule declared. “But don’t you go to worryin’ yourself ’bout work. I kin show you plenty tricks to git outer workin’.”

The old horse Ebenezer stared coldly at Mistah Mule. Ebenezer was no shirk. And he didn’t like the thought of being driven with a lazy partner like this one.

“Where was your home before you came here?” he asked Mistah Mule.

“My real home is ’way down South,” the newcomer informed him. “I come North last spring. An’ I been spendin’ my time over where they buildin’ the new railroad.”

“So you’ve been working on the railroad this summer!” Ebenezer exclaimed.

“Not workin’ exactly!” said Mistah Mule. “You might say I been balkin’.”

[13]“What!” Ebenezer gasped. “Are you balky, sometimes?”

“I most gen’rally is,” said Mistah Mule. And then he gave his odd laugh, “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”

“Let me give you a bit of advice,” said the old horse, looking very solemn. “Just forget all such tricks as balking and kicking. You’ve come to make your home among kind people. You’ll be well treated here. And you ought to behave politely. When Farmer Green asks you to work, I hope you’ll do your best.”

Mistah Mule threw back his head and showed his yellow teeth in a disagreeable grin.

“I has to have my fun,” he remarked. “Sometimes I has it one way; sometimes another.”

“You’ll have the best of times on this farm,” Ebenezer advised Mistah Mule,[14] “if only you’ll be gentle and willing. I’ve lived here all my life; and I couldn’t ask for a better home. And I’ve always tried to behave myself.”

“Don’t you never kick?” Mistah Mule inquired.

“Oh, yes! When I’m in the pasture I sometimes kick.”

“I calls that kickin’ up,” Mistah Mule retorted with a snort. “What about kickin’ folks?”

“Never! Never!” Ebenezer replied in a shocked tone.

Just then a step told them that Farmer Green had entered the barn.

“Just watch out, if he comes near me!” Mistah Mule warned Ebenezer.

Mistah Mule had told the old horse, Ebenezer, to watch out, if Farmer Green came near him. And Ebenezer knew what his new neighbor meant by that. He intended to kick Farmer Green again.

Ebenezer soon saw that Farmer Green had a plan in his head. He called to the hired man. And then they both came up with a long, stout pole, one end of which they thrust into a front corner of Mistah Mule’s stall. Holding the other end of the pole, which stuck out a safe distance behind Mistah Mule’s heels, the hired man pushed the pole far over, crowding Mistah[16] Mule firmly against a side of his stall.

“There!” said Farmer Green. “He can’t kick now.” And then Farmer Green walked boldly in beside Mistah Mule and untied his halter-strap. He backed that black rascal out of the stall, turned him around on the barn floor, and then backed him in again.

Mistah Mule now stood facing to the rear. He looked somewhat puzzled when Farmer Green fastened the halter-strap around the upright post on his left. He looked more puzzled when Farmer Green snapped another strap to his halter, wrapping the end of this one securely about a post on his right.

“Now,” Farmer Green remarked with a chuckle, “we can walk past this fellow’s stall without having to dodge his heels.”

Meanwhile Farmer Green’s son Johnnie had come in to watch what happened to[17] Mistah Mule. “Won’t he bite?” he asked his father.

“No!” said Farmer Green. “He’s too wise to wear out his teeth on anything except food.”

Johnnie Green then slipped in beside Ebenezer and gave him an apple. Out of the corner of his eye, Mistah Mule saw Ebenezer take the gift. And when Ebenezer began to munch the apple, Mistah Mule spoke. “I is waitin’ for a apple,” he remarked. But Johnnie Green went away without giving him any.

“You see!” said Ebenezer to his new neighbor. “If you had behaved yourself, Johnnie would have treated you too.”

“I wouldn’t ’a bit him,” Mistah Mule answered.

“He doesn’t trust you,” Ebenezer retorted. “And I must say that I don’t blame him.”

[18]“It ain’t right,” Mistah Mule complained, “to give a no-account ole hoss like you a apple, and not give one to a valuable young critter like my own self.”

“Valuable!” Ebenezer exclaimed with a slight smile. “I hear that your former owners gave you away to Farmer Green because they couldn’t do anything with you.”

Mistah Mule hung his head. For once he was silent.

On the next day after Mistah Mule’s arrival at Farmer Green’s place there followed something that the old horse Ebenezer had been dreading. Farmer Green harnessed Mistah Mule and Ebenezer to a strong wagon.

“I suppose I ought not to complain, if this helps Farmer Green,” Ebenezer thought. “But I can’t help feeling that he might have spared me this disgrace. To be harnessed with a good-natured Mule would be bad enough. But to be harnessed with a kicking, balky fellow like this Mistah Mule is a thousand times worse.”

[20]Ebenezer sighed as Farmer Green climbed into the wagon and picked up the reins. But he started willingly, as he always had, when Farmer Green spoke.

To Ebenezer’s surprise, his mate started too. He had expected Mistah Mule to balk.

“I see you’ve decided to behave,” Ebenezer remarked to him.

“Just you wait, ole hoss, until he asks me to draw a load,” Mistah Mule answered. “I doesn’t mind pullin’ a empty wagon a little ways. I likes to stretch my legs once in a while. But I doesn’t aim to do any reg’lar work. I never has done any. Why should I now?”

On the whole, Ebenezer had little fault to find with Mistah Mule’s behavior on their drive. Farmer Green put no load into the wagon. He merely jogged Mistah Mule and Ebenezer around what everybody[21] in Pleasant Valley knew as the “Four-mile Square”; then drove them home. And Mistah Mule trotted along and stopped and started whenever Farmer Green gave the word.

Mistah Mule was almost a gentleman, except for one thing. He kept “crowding the pole,” as Farmer Green called it. He insisted on squeezing himself up against the wagon-pole, which was between him and Ebenezer. More than once Ebenezer told him to “move over.” But Mistah Mule might have had no ears at all, instead of great long ones, for all he seemed to hear.

This unpleasant trick annoyed Ebenezer. But he did not let it worry him. He had known young colts that tried it. And Ebenezer remembered that Farmer Green had a way of stopping it.

After Farmer Green had led Ebenezer[22] into his stall, and backed Mistah Mule into his, he called to the boy Johnnie: “Bring me an old piece of leather, some long tacks, and a hammer!”

When he heard that, Ebenezer pricked up his ears.

“What’s this Farmer Green aimin’ to do now?” Mistah Mule asked him.

“You’ll find out the next time he drives us,” Ebenezer told him. And he would say nothing more.

Mistah Mule had a hearty appetite. And he was not at all backward about demanding food. Towards meal-time he would begin to paw the floor. And though the old horse Ebenezer told him again and again to stop, he paid not the slightest heed.

“You won’t be fed any sooner for making such a racket,” Ebenezer warned him.

“The longer they waits before they feeds me, the more noise I kin make,” Mistah Mule retorted. And Ebenezer had to admit that that seemed to be true.

Now, Mistah Mule always ate all his hay—and wanted another serving. But he[24] wouldn’t touch the grain that Farmer Green set before him in a box. At least, he wouldn’t eat it. However, he stuck his nose near it, if it was ground corn and oats, and blew into it in a most ill-bred manner, so that the grain flew in every direction. Whole oats he would hardly even look at.

Old Ebenezer watched his neighbor’s actions with great scorn.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked Mistah Mule at last. “Why don’t you eat your grain?”

“’Cause I doesn’t care for any kind they’s given me,” Mistah Mule explained. “I is used to havin’ whole corn served to me. An’ I doesn’t see why folks ’spects me to eat what I doesn’t like. I reckon this Farmer Green’ll learn to take a hint before long.”

Well, strange to say, that very day Mistah Mule shot a glance of triumph at[25] Ebenezer, because of something Farmer Green said to the hired man.

“I declare,” Farmer Green exclaimed, “I don’t see why this mule won’t eat his grain. There can’t be anything wrong with his teeth, for he chews his hay. The only reason I can think of is that he has always been fed something else; and he’s so stubborn he won’t eat what we give him.”

“Maybe he has had whole corn,” the hired man suggested.

Farmer Green nodded.

“I’ll hitch him and Ebenezer up and drive down to the gristmill,” he said. “Perhaps the miller has some corn that he hasn’t ground yet.”

Ebenezer chuckled when he heard that. But he wasn’t pleased because Mistah Mule was going to get the kind of grain he wanted. No! Ebenezer was thinking what[26] a surprise Mistah Mule was going to have when he crowded over against the wagon-pole, as he had when Farmer Green drove them together the day before.

He hadn’t forgotten that Farmer Green had asked Johnnie to bring him a piece of leather, some tacks, and a hammer.

Farmer Green had started for the gristmill, driving that ill-matched pair, rascally Mistah Mule and the staid old horse, Ebenezer. When they had swung into the road in front of the farmhouse, Mistah Mule played again that trick which had annoyed Ebenezer the day before. Laying his ears back, he sidled over toward Ebenezer and pressed his flank against the wagon-pole. He knew that the trick bothered Ebenezer. Had not Ebenezer ordered him, yesterday, to “move over”? He knew that it annoyed Farmer Green too. For Farmer Green had spoken to[28] him and tried to guide him aside by pulling on a rein.

Just for a moment Mistah Mule leaned heavily against the wagon-pole. And then he sprang away as if he had touched a red-hot coal. He plunged wildly, switched his tail, and threatened to kick.

Farmer Green tightened the reins and called to him in a calm, firm voice, “Steady, boy! Whoa! Whoa!”

Mistah Mule soon stopped his struggling. “A whole swarm of hornets done stung me,” he said to Ebenezer. “Didn’t they sting you, ole hoss?”

“I felt nothing,” Ebenezer replied.

For a few minutes Mistah Mule stayed on his own side of the road, where he belonged. But as soon as his skin stopped tingling he edged over toward the wagon-pole once more.

The old horse Ebenezer chuckled.

[29]“Mistah Mule will get stung again as soon as he touches the pole,” he said to himself. He wondered how many times Mistah Mule would press against the sharp tacks which Farmer Green had driven through a piece of leather and then nailed to the wagon-pole, with their ends pointing at Mistah Mule. It was no wonder that when they pricked him, Mistah Mule thought they were hornets.

Old Ebenezer watched his team-mate narrowly. Soon he both saw and felt Mistah Mule lurch against the pole. No sooner had the black rascal touched it than he sprang away again with a grunt.

“Hornets agin!” he exclaimed. “Sakes alive! I declare I never see such a powerful lot as they is hereabouts.”

“Maybe if you kept away from the wagon-pole they wouldn’t touch you,” Ebenezer suggested.

[30]“Shucks! What’s the pole got to do with my bein’ stung by these here hornets?” And Mistah Mule “crowded the pole” again—to use Farmer Green’s words.

“Ole hoss, you’re right!” he snorted as he leaped aside. “I declare these is the queerest hornets I ever did see.”

Farmer Green tied Mistah Mule and the old horse Ebenezer to the fence beside the gristmill and went inside the old gray building to talk with the miller.

While he was gone, Mistah Mule took great pains to keep a safe distance from the wagon-pole. He scolded Ebenezer when that mild fellow moved the pole even as little as an inch toward his companion.

“I’se been stung three times,” Mistah Mule grumbled. “I doesn’t care to be stung agin.”

“I can’t stand perfectly still and let the flies bite me,” Ebenezer retorted. “I[32] have to stamp once in a while, to drive them away.”

“Flies!” Mistah Mule sniffed. “I doesn’t mind flies bitin’ me. It’s hornets I objects to.”

Old Ebenezer couldn’t help thinking what a dull fellow Mistah Mule was. It hadn’t once occurred to him that what he called hornet-stings was caused by the pricks of the sharp tacks which Farmer Green had fastened to the wagon-pole in order to teach Mistah Mule to stay where he belonged.

In a few minutes Farmer Green appeared in the wide doorway of the gristmill, dragging a heavy sack, which he dropped at the threshold. Then he leaped down upon the ground and walked toward Mistah Mule and Ebenezer.

“There’s your corn that you’ve been wanting,” Ebenezer told Mistah Mule.[33] “Farmer Green is going to drive us up to the doorway and load the sack into the wagon.”

“I’se willin’ to help pull the empty wagon across the yard,” said Mistah Mule. “But after Farmer Green loads that heavy sack into it, I aims to stay right where I is.”

“What!” cried Ebenezer. “Are you going to balk? Aren’t you going to help draw your own corn home to the barn?”

There was a very surly look in Mistah Mule’s left eye, which was nearest Ebenezer, as he answered, “I doesn’t crave to do any work, even for my own self.”

Farmer Green now untied this strange pair, turned them around, and backed the wagon up to the gristmill door. Then he dumped the sack of corn into the back of the wagon, sat down upon the seat, picked up the reins, and said, “Giddap!”

[34]“Now, don’t be silly!” said Ebenezer to his companion. “This load is nothing. We’ll have it in the barn before you know it.” And he started forward.

“I’se a person of my word,” Mistah Mule declared. And planting his forefeet firmly in front of him, he refused to budge from that spot.

The old horse Ebenezer struggled forward, trying to pull both the wagon and his stubborn mate, Mistah Mule. But Farmer Green soon called, “Whoa, Ebenezer!” And then Ebenezer stood still.

Farmer Green sat upon the wagon-seat, looking down at Mistah Mule, when the miller, all white with flour, came to his door and peered out.

“What! Are you still here? I thought you had gone,” he said.

“This mule,” Farmer Green explained, “likes your place so much he doesn’t want to go home.”

[36]“Balky, eh?” the miller inquired with a grin. “Well, it’s a nice day. I wish I had nothing to do but sit out there in the sunshine.”

“I don’t expect to sit here long,” Farmer Green replied. “Just let me have a bit of string, please!”

The miller passed him a piece of the twine that he used for tying his meal sacks.

Mistah Mule paid no heed to this talk, nor to what happened. His mind was full of one idea. And that was that nobody should make him stir a single step until the sack of corn was taken out of the wagon. With all four legs planted firmly upon the ground, with his head hung low and his long ears drooping, he looked very silly, and sulky, and stubborn.

“Come!” Ebenezer urged him. “Don’t make trouble for Farmer Green!”

[37]“Save your breath!” Mistah Mule retorted. “I knows what I wants to do. An’ if they whips me, I’se a-goin’ to kick.”

“My! my!” said the old horse Ebenezer to himself. “I hope none of my friends sees me harnessed with this terrible person. I’m ashamed to be hitched to the same wagon with him.”

Meanwhile Farmer Green had jumped out of the wagon. And now he stood at Mistah Mule’s head. Watching, Ebenezer saw him tie the short length of cord tightly about Mistah Mule’s right ear.

“What for did he do that?” Mistah Mule asked Ebenezer.

“I don’t know,” Ebenezer replied. “Nothing like that ever happened to me.”

“This string certainly do feel queer on my ear,” Mistah Mule muttered.

[38]Then Farmer Green climbed into the wagon again. “Giddap!” he said once more. And this time both Ebenezer and Mistah Mule started together. They walked out of the gristmill yard and trotted up the road towards home.

Mistah Mule had thought so much about that string around his ear that he had forgotten to be balky anymore!

Mistah Mule hadn’t been long at Farmer Green’s place before he and Johnnie Green became better acquainted. Johnnie learned that whatever other faults Mistah Mule might have, he didn’t bite. So Johnnie began to bring two apples to the barn—one for the old horse Ebenezer and one for Mistah Mule. Facing backward in his stall, so that his heels could do no one any harm, Mistah Mule used to munch the apples with a very happy look upon his face. He seemed so friendly that Johnnie Green began to tease his father to let him ride Mistah Mule.

[40]At first Farmer Green said, “No!” But Johnnie could see no harm in asking him the same question day after day. Johnnie had sometimes known his father to change his mind. And sure enough! at last Farmer Green said, “Maybe you can ride the mule some day. But I want to ride him first. I want to see if he’s safe for you.”

Then, instead of saying to his father, “Will you please let me ride the mule to-day?” Johnnie began to put this question to him: “Won’t you ride the mule to-day, please?”

It seemed to Johnnie that his father had never been so busy. Farmer Green now had a hundred things to do, not one of which could wait while he saddled Mistah Mule and rode him. But Johnnie teased so much that Farmer Green finally took the time to do what he asked. He[41] rode Mistah Mule up the road and back.

Somewhat to his surprise, Mistah Mule behaved very well.

“He’s a fine saddle animal,” Farmer Green told Johnnie as he jumped down from Mistah Mule’s back. “He may have some tricks that he didn’t try to play on me. Ride him, if you want to. But stay in the meadow. If he should throw you, it wouldn’t hurt you so much to fall on the grass as on the hard road.”

Johnnie Green was already shortening the stirrup-straps. He led Mistah Mule up beside a box, and from that he sprang into the saddle.

“Take good care of our boy!” the old horse Ebenezer warned Mistah Mule. “Don’t you dare to hurt him!”

“I certainly aims to do just exactly what he says,” Mistah Mule replied. And then, as Johnnie drew the bridle-reins[42] tight, Mistah Mule walked away.

“Well, well!” Ebenezer murmured. “Mistah Mule surely is improving. He’s behaving better every day. I almost think I’m going to like him, after all.”

Johnnie Green rode Mistah Mule into the meadow. Mistah Mule seemed to be, as Farmer Green had said, a fine saddle animal. He had an amble that was as gentle as the sway of a rocking chair. His trot didn’t jounce Johnnie a bit. He cantered delightfully.

Johnnie Green was greatly pleased with his mount. “I wish I owned him,” he thought. “I wonder if Father would swap him for the Muley Cow.” The Muley Cow belonged to Johnnie Green. She would have felt terribly if she had known what was in his mind.

[44]Mistah Mule soon proved himself a good jumper. He cleared the brook easily. And then he scrambled up the bank and began to race down the long gentle slope that stretched toward Cedar Swamp.

Now, Johnnie Green liked to ride at a gallop. Mistah Mule showed a burst of speed that pleased him. But in a few moments it seemed to Johnnie that Mistah Mule was traveling faster with every jump.

“He can’t be running away,” Johnnie muttered, as if trying to put out of his head any notion that Mistah Mule might be doing that very thing. And then Johnnie began to pull upon the reins. “Whoa!” he cried, not meaning that he wanted Mistah Mule to stop, but only that he wished him to gallop more slowly.

Well, Mistah Mule had promised the[45] old horse Ebenezer that he would do exactly as Johnnie Green said. So now, when his rider cried, “Whoa!” he stiffened his legs and came down upon all fours instantly. He stopped short. Nobody could say that he hadn’t obeyed Johnnie Green.

But Johnnie Green himself did not stop so quickly. On he went. He shot along Mistah Mule’s neck, slipped over his head, in spite of a frantic clutch at Mistah Mule’s ears, and sailed sprawling through the air.

Some distance in front of Mistah Mule, Johnnie Green struck the ground. Though the grass was almost knee-high, Johnnie found his landing-place far from soft. And while he lay there, gasping for breath, Mistah Mule suddenly turned and trotted toward the farm buildings.

Johnnie struggled to his feet and ran[46] after him. He tried to call out to him to stop. But not a word could he utter.

There was a great flurry in the farmyard when Mistah Mule came home with his saddle empty. Later, in the barn, the old horse Ebenezer spoke to him very severely. But Mistah Mule declared that it wasn’t his fault at all that Johnnie Green had been thrown.

“That boy,” he told Ebenezer, “he done say, ‘Whoa!’ An’ I whoaed!”

Though they both lived on the same farm, which belonged to Farmer Green, Mistah Mule and the Muley Cow were not on speaking terms. The Muley Cow had spent years there. She had seen so many queer strangers come and go that she paid little heed to new arrivals unless she knew that they were going to be what she called “permanent,” meaning that they were there to stay.

Of course she began to hear about Mistah Mule, from the day when he kicked Farmer Green. And she said then that Mistah Mule wouldn’t be there long. She[48] had such a poor opinion of him that she wouldn’t even turn her head to look at the newcomer about whom all her friends were talking.

“There he is! He’s the fellow that kicked Farmer Green,” the Muley Cow’s neighbors would tell her. And they couldn’t understand why she wasn’t interested.

At last, however, somebody said something to the Muley Cow that made her both think and talk of very little except Mistah Mule. Up in the hillside pasture old Mr. Crow settled down upon the fence near her.

“Good morning!” he cried. “How are you to-day? And how’s your cousin?”

“I’m quite well, thank you,” the Muley Cow replied. “But which cousin do you mean? You know, half the herd is related to me. I have first cousins, second[49] cousins, third cousins, fourth cousins——”

“Yes! Yes!” Mr. Crow interrupted. “I don’t mean your Cow cousins. I mean Mistah Mule.”

“What?” exclaimed the Muley Cow with an angry toss of her hornless head. “What? Sir! How dare you call that wretched creature my cousin?”

Old Mr. Crow chuckled. He loved to tease the Muley Cow.

“Well,” he replied, “there’s his name. ‘Mule’ and ‘Muley’ are a good deal alike, aren’t they?”

“Perhaps! Perhaps!” spluttered the Muley Cow. “But this Mistah Mule and I are not the least bit alike.”

“Well,” said old Mr. Crow with a grin, “there’s his tail.”

“What about his tail?” snapped the Muley Cow.

[50]“It’s very much like yours,” Mr. Crow replied. “It’s a tufted tail. It’s nothing like the old horse Ebenezer’s tail. If Mistah Mule’s tail isn’t the same kind as yours, then I’m not a bird.”

By this time Mr. Crow had driven the Muley Cow almost frantic.

“I don’t care what sort of tail Mistah Mule has,” she declared. “He certainly is no cousin of mine. He is not related to me, even distantly.”

“Perhaps not!” said Mr. Crow. “Anyhow, I’ll see what Mistah Mule himself says about that.”

Old Mr. Crow was in luck. He wanted to have a neighborly chat with Mistah Mule. Not daring to fly inside the barn, he was a bit puzzled as to how he could meet Mistah Mule. And then came the good luck. Farmer Green turned Mistah Mule into the pasture.

From the top of a tall elm not far from the cornfield Mr. Crow spied Mistah Mule cropping grass near the pasture bars. About half a minute later Mr. Crow flopped down upon the topmost bar and called, “Good morning, friend!”

Mistah Mule raised his head. He had[52] never seen Mr. Crow before. But he addressed him in a most familiar fashion. “Howdy, Jim!” he answered.

Old Mr. Crow choked. He hated to be called “Jim,” because it really was his name, which he greatly disliked.

“Isn’t I met you before, down South?” Mistah Mule inquired.

“I hardly think so,” Mr. Crow replied. “I’ve been spending the winters in the North for a good many years. I haven’t been South since I don’t know when. And—er—when you speak to me, or of me, kindly omit the ‘Jim.’ Just say, ‘Mr. Crow.’”

Mistah Mule nodded. “I doesn’t blame you, not the leastest bit,” he remarked. “I knows just how you feels.”

“We won’t talk about that any more,” said Mr. Crow. “I came to talk about an entirely different matter.”

[53]“What’s that?” Mistah Mule inquired.

“Your tail!” Mr. Crow explained. “You know, it’s rather an odd one.”

Mistah Mule was so surprised that he turned his head and looked back at his tail.

“I doesn’t see anything queer about it,” he murmured.

“Think hard!” Mr. Crow urged him. “Doesn’t it remind you of other tails on this farm?”

“No, sah!” Mistah Mule declared.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that your tail is somewhat like a Cow’s?” Mr. Crow went on.

Mistah Mule was puzzled. He even seemed alarmed.

“This here is my own tail!” he cried. “Can’t nobody say I stole it.”

“Certainly not!” Mr. Crow agreed. “I’ll explain more carefully. There’s a[54] Cow on this farm that everybody calls ‘the Muley Cow.’ Just to tease her, I want you to pretend you’re her cousin and that your two tails are a good deal alike.”

“But I isn’t got two tails!” bellowed Mistah Mule. And again he turned his head, as if to make sure that another tail hadn’t crept up behind him, when he wasn’t looking.

“My goodness!” Mr. Crow muttered. “It’s hard to talk with this person.”

Old Mr. Crow, at his very first meeting with Mistah Mule, decided that he was somewhat stupid. When Mr. Crow spoke of the Muley Cow, and said to Mistah Mule, “I want you to pretend that your two tails are alike,” Mistah Mule actually didn’t know what the old gentleman was talking about. He actually looked around to make sure he hadn’t two tails of his own!

“Of course you haven’t two tails,” Mr. Crow told him. “I mean, yours and hers.”

“Yes’m—yes, sah!” said Mistah Mule.[56] “But how is I a-goin’ to pretend that? If a fly lights on my back, does you ’spect the Muley Cow a-goin’ to swish it off with her tail?”

“No! No! Certainly not!” cried old Mr. Crow.

“Yes’m—yes, sah! If a fly lights on the Muley Cow’s back, I’se a-goin’ to swish it off with my tail.”

“No! No! My goodness, no!” exclaimed old Mr. Crow. “Listen to me. I’ll explain carefully. I trust—” he added—“I trust it’s not necessary for me to use words of one syllable.”

“One which?” Mistah Mule inquired, cocking a long ear towards Mr. Crow.

Mr. Crow paid no heed to the question. “I’ll put it this way,” he said: “I want to have a little fun with the Muley Cow. I want to tease her a bit. So when you meet her—as you’re sure to, if you stay here[57] on the farm—just say, ‘Good morning, madam! I see your tail is very much like mine.’ Now you understand, don’t you?”

Mistah Mule scratched his head with one hind foot. Something still puzzled him.

“How that a-goin’ to tease her?” he asked. “’Pears to me it a-goin’ to please her.”

“You think so?” Mr. Crow retorted with a sly smile. “Well, perhaps you’re right. Try it, anyhow. And let me know what she says to you.”

Then Mr. Crow flew away towards the cornfield.

“Huh!” Mistah Mule grunted as he watched Mr. Crow growing smaller and smaller in the distance. “That ole rascal, he a-tryin’ to git me into trouble. That old Jim Crow, he think he’s mighty sly. But I reckon maybe I kin play a trick or[58] two my own self.” And Mistah Mule laughed in his odd fashion, “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”

’Way over in the cornfield Mr. Crow heard him. And the old gentleman stopped right in the middle of a chuckle.

“I’d give an ear of corn,” he said aloud, “to know what he’s laughing at.”

Old Mr. Crow had said that the Muley Cow and Mistah Mule were sure to meet, if Mistah Mule stayed at Farmer Green’s place. And they did. One day Mistah Mule was pulling at a choice clump of clover, in the pasture, when an elderly dame thrust her head over the stone wall near-by, stared at him for a few seconds, swallowed her cud, and spoke.

“Good morning!” she called out. “Unless I’m mistaken, you’re the person they’re all talking about. You’re Mistah Mule.”

“Yes’m!” Mistah Mule mumbled.

[60]“Would you be so kind as to turn around for a moment?” the old lady asked. “I’m the Muley Cow and I’d like to see your tail.”

“Yes’m!” Mistah Mule repeated, as he wheeled about.

“That will do, thank you!” the Muley Cow told him presently. “I wanted to look at your tail. Old Mr. Crow told me it was a good deal like my own.”

“Yes’m!” said Mistah Mule.

“So you agree with Mr. Crow!” exclaimed the Muley Cow quickly.

“No’m!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” the Muley Cow replied. “Your tail is not like mine. It has no beautiful curl dangling at the end of it, like this one of mine.”

Mistah Mule walked up to the stone wall and laughed in his strange fashion.

“That ole Crow, he try to make trouble[61] for me an’ you,” he informed the Muley Cow. “He say for me to tell you our tails is like enough to be twins. But I says, that ole black scamp better do his errands his own self. I has seen too many of his folkses down South, where I comes from, to do what he tell me. I a-goin’ do just what he don’t tell me!”

“Well! Well!” cried the Muley Cow. “You’re a person of some sense, after all. You surprise me, sir. I had a very poor opinion of you, when I heard that you had kicked Farmer Green.”

Mistah Mule looked very uneasy.

“I ain’t goin’ to do that no more,” he said. And he hung his head.

“You sent Johnnie Green flying, the first time he rode you,” the Muley Cow went on. “I hope you won’t do that again, either.”

“No’m!” Mistah Mule murmured.

[62]“You see, ma’am, I’se never lived ’mong kind people before. They certainly has treated me fine on this farm.”

“I’m delighted to have met you—delighted!” cried the Muley Cow. “I shall tell all my friends that you’re going to be on your best behavior from this time on.”

“Yes’m!” said Mistah Mule. “So long as they doesn’t ask me to work!”

The Muley Cow smiled. She thought that was just one of Mistah Mule’s jokes.

From his favorite perch in the top of a tall elm old Mr. Crow saw Mistah Mule and the Muley Cow talking together. He hurriedly gathered a dozen of his friends, whom he found in the cornfield, and led them in a headlong flight to the pasture. He had promised them good sport, teasing the Muley Cow.

The crew of Crows found the Muley Cow in the shade of a maple tree, chewing her cud.

“A—ahem!” said Mr. Crow to the old dame. “Did you have a pleasant chat with Mistah Mule?”

[64]“Very!” the Muley Cow replied. “I must say that I found Mistah Mule quite gentlemanly, which is something I haven’t found some of my neighbors.”

Her answer almost took Mr. Crow’s breath away.

“There’s a mistake somewhere,” he croaked, amid the loud laughter of his friends. “I should like to know what Mistah Mule said to you.”

“He said something about you, Mr. Crow. But I’d rather not repeat it.”

Old Mr. Crow tried to make himself heard above the clamor of his cronies, who were having a better time, even, than they had expected.

“That Mistah Mule is two-faced,” he declared. “I’m going straight to him and ask him what he means by gossiping about me.”

“We’ll come too!” cried his friends.

[65]He wished they would go away. But they all followed him as he sailed over the hillside and settled down beside Mistah Mule.

“What did you say to the Muley Cow?” Mr. Crow demanded fiercely of that dusky fellow.

“I done told her I didn’t ’spect to work none on this farm,” said Mistah Mule with a grin.

“Ha! I can well believe that,” cried Mr. Crow. “And what else, pray, did you say to her?”

“You mean, did I done say somethin’ ’bout a ole black rascal who thinks hisself mighty smart?” Mistah Mule inquired mildly.

A chorus of loud caws greeted this question. And Mr. Crow flew into a rage.

“There’s no use talking with this great clown,” he said to his friends.[66] “It’s impossible to converse with him.” And rising swiftly, Mr. Crow tore off toward the woods. His friends followed him, jeering boisterously. And Mistah Mule gave voice to a loud hee-haw, which only made Mr. Crow fly the faster.

Mistah Mule stood still and watched his late callers straggle into the cover of the tree-tops.

“I doesn’t look to see that old Crow ’round here agin in a hurry,” he murmured.

“I certainly hope not!” said somebody in a squeaky tone, right at his feet.

“My sakes! Who’s here?” Mistah Mule exclaimed.

When Mistah Mule heard the tiny, squeaky voice, he didn’t know, at first, who had spoken. He looked all around for some moments before he spied two beady bright eyes peeping up at him from beneath a plantain leaf.

“Sakes alive!” Mistah Mule exclaimed then. “I thought they was ghostses ’round here.”

“No!” said the small person who eyed him steadily. “I am not one of those things. I am Master Meadow Mouse.”

“I hearn a voice but I didn’t see nobody,” Mistah Mule explained. “That’s[68] the way with ghostses. An’ if you sees ’em, you doesn’t hear ’em.” He shivered slightly as he spoke, although the weather was by no means cold.

“Have you ever seen one?” Master Meadow Mouse asked him.

“N—no! Can’t say as I has,” answered Mistah Mule. “But my mammy, ’way down South, she tell me all ’bout ’em.”

“I never heard of such things as ‘ghostses’ before,” said Master Meadow Mouse. “But now I think I must have heard one about a minute ago. I was asleep over there under that bush. And there was the queerest sound. That’s what brought me here. I came to find out what it was.”

“Was it a dreadful, hollow noise?” Mistah Mule asked him.

“Yes! Yes!”

[69]“Sound like somebody tormented?”

“Yes! Yes!”

Mr. Mule nodded wisely. “It certainly was a ghost,” he declared. “Queer I didn’t notice it. I been right here quite a while. Kin you make a noise like it?”

“I’ll try,” Master Meadow Mouse replied. And he gave a funny, squeaky hee-haw!

“My goodness!” cried Mistah Mule. “That was my own self you done hear! I was laughin’.”

“You were laughing?” Master Meadow Mouse exclaimed, as if he couldn’t quite believe there was anybody, anywhere, that laughed in such a terrible fashion.

“Uh—huh!” said Mistah Mule. “I done laugh at ole Jim Crow.”

“You must mean old Mr. Crow,” Master Meadow Mouse observed.

[70]“Uh—huh!” said Mistah Mule once more.

Master Meadow Mouse knew that he meant “Yes!”

“What’s your name?” Master Meadow Mouse asked Mistah Mule.

Mistah Mule told him.

“I shouldn’t think you’d dare to laugh when you’re alone,” Master Meadow Mouse remarked.

“’Cause why?” inquired Mistah Mule.

“I should think the sound of your laugh would scare you terribly,” Master Meadow Mouse explained. “And how awful, if—when you were alone—you got to laughing and couldn’t stop!”

This remark so amused Mistah Mule that he couldn’t help laughing again.[72] And Master Meadow Mouse promptly tumbled right over backward. He was sadly frightened. But he soon pulled himself together.

“Do you suppose,” he asked, “I could learn to make that sound? It would be pleasant, when anybody chases you, to turn around quickly and hee-haw right in his face. It’s a fine way to frighten a person.”

“Keep a-tryin’ whenever you gits a chance,” Mistah Mule suggested.

Just then another little person came creeping through the grass. It was Master Meadow Mouse’s mother.

“I’ll try it on her,” Master Meadow Mouse whispered. And scampering up to his mother, he said in his tiny, squeaky voice, “Hee-haw!”

“There! You’re catching cold!” his mother exclaimed. “You sneezed. Come[73] right home and drink some hot ginger tea. You must wear your rubbers when the dew is on the grass.”

“Excuse me, Ma! I was not sneezing. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my friend here,” said Master Meadow Mouse.

“Friend! What friend?” his mother replied, looking in every direction except up. She didn’t see Mistah Mule, who towered above her like a mountain.

“Him!” said Master Meadow Mouse, pointing upward.

His mother raised her head. And when she beheld Mistah Mule she gave a shrill scream.

“What monster is this?” she cried.

“He isn’t a monster. He’s Mistah Mule,” Master Meadow Mouse told her.

“Come away!” Mrs. Meadow Mouse begged her son. “It’s not safe to be so[74] near him. He could swallow you and me both at the same time.”

Of course Mistah Mule had never eaten a mouse of any sort. The good lady’s fright amused him. “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!” he laughed.

“Run, child! Run!” Mrs. Meadow Mouse shrieked. And gathering up her petticoats, she dashed for the nearest tree and squirmed her way down among the roots, out of sight.

Meanwhile Master Meadow Mouse began galloping about Mistah Mule in a circle. Watching his small new friend, Mistah Mule slowly turned round and round in his tracks.

“What for you does that?” he inquired at last.

“My mother told me to run,” Master Meadow Mouse explained. “I always try to mind my mother.”

Everybody on the farm agreed that Mistah Mule was growing better natured. Even Farmer Green had to admit that Mistah Mule’s behavior had improved.

One day Johnnie Green’s father wished to send his son to the village, on an errand.

“I’m going to let you drive the mule,” he told Johnnie. “We’ll hitch him to the light wagon. Here’s a letter to the store-keeper. He’ll give you a part for the mowing-machine. Hurry right back with it.”

A few minutes later Mistah Mule trotted[76] briskly out of the yard, with Johnnie Green sitting very straight on the wagon-seat.

Now, in spite of his long ears and his odd tail, Mistah Mule had a certain style about him. For all he was lazy, when he chose to behave himself he moved his small, narrow feet in a smart way. And when he trotted he raised his knees quite high, in a fashionable manner. Moreover, he had a sleek black coat, which glistened in the sunshine.

Johnnie Green couldn’t help feeling rather proud as Mistah Mule went down the road at a spanking trot.

“We’ll be back home long before Father expects us,” he thought.

Soon Mistah Mule’s feet were thumping over the great covered bridge that crossed the river. And in a short time they began to climb the long hill that rose[77] from the valley. Beyond this hill lay the village.

Mistah Mule fell into a walk. A slow walk it was. The sun, beating down upon Johnnie Green’s back, felt scorching hot. It beat down upon Mistah Mule’s back, too. And he began to think that it would be foolish to climb that mile-long hill ahead of him, dragging the wagon and Johnnie Green behind him. His head drooped. His ears flopped back and forth with every step. And at last he moved so slowly that Johnnie Green spoke to him.

“Get along, there!” he cried, drawing the reins tighter.

Mistah Mule stopped short.

“Giddap! Giddap!” Johnnie shouted. “My goodness! I hope he isn’t going to balk. Go on, there!” And he slapped Mistah Mule with the reins.

Mistah Mule laid back his ears, slowly[78] turned his head, and stared at Johnnie Green. There was no doubt that he had balked.

Johnnie didn’t know what to do. His father was waiting for that part for the mowing-machine. And Johnnie hadn’t even reached the village yet.

He sat unhappily on the seat for a few minutes. And then he made up his mind that he would do something. “I’m going to tie this old mule to a tree and walk to the village and back,” he decided.

So he jumped from the wagon and tried to lead Mistah Mule out of the road.

But that stubborn fellow wouldn’t stir.

Two hours passed. And Farmer Green began to stop his work now and then and glance down the road.

“Johnnie ought to be coming along any minute now,” he said to the hired man.

“He ought to, unless that mule has taken a notion to balk,” the hired man replied.

“Oh! I don’t think he’ll do that,” said Farmer Green. “He hasn’t balked for a long time.”

But when another hour had slipped by and Johnnie and Mistah Mule were still missing, Farmer Green began to feel uneasy.[80] So he hitched one of the bays to a buggy. And away he went, down the road, with old dog Spot racing along after him.

Spot kept carefully out of sight, beneath the buggy, until they reached the bridge. Then he dashed out and begged for a ride. He knew that he was too far from home for Farmer Green to send him back.

Farmer Green stopped the bay and told Spot to jump up. Then they hurried on again.

“There they are!” Farmer Green exclaimed as the bay began to climb the hill. “I was wrong. That mule can’t be trusted. I was foolish to think he’d ever be any good.”

“Just what I’ve said all the time!” Spot barked sharply.

Johnnie Green heard him. He turned[81] around and looked down the road. Then he stood up in the wagon, waved his hat, and shouted.

And then—just because he was tired of standing there, and just because he liked to do what people didn’t expect—Mistah Mule suddenly started forward. Johnnie Green clutched at the wagon-seat to save himself from a spill.

“Whoa!” he cried. But Mistah Mule paid no heed to that order. Seizing the bit between his teeth, he broke into a smart trot.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Johnnie yelled as he tugged at the reins.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Mistah Mule chuckled, as he went all the faster.

Meanwhile Farmer Green urged the bay up the hill. Just as they reached the top he brought the bay’s nose even with the rear wheels of Johnnie’s wagon.

[82]“Stop him, Johnnie! Stop him!” he called.

“I—I—I can’t!” Johnnie answered as the wagon jolted over the stones.

Then his father tried to pass Johnnie, hoping to head off Mistah Mule.

But Mistah Mule would have none of that. He stretched his neck out and tore down the hill like a trotter at the county fair. In a few moments he had left the bay and Farmer Green far behind.

“Huh!” he grunted. “Thinks they kin pass me, does they?”

If Mistah Mule hadn’t at last overtaken a load of hay in the road, there’s no telling when he would have slackened his pace. It wasn’t because Johnnie Green tugged on the reins and cried, “Whoa! Whoa!” that Mistah Mule fell into a walk. No! It was because he wanted some of that hay. He followed close behind the load, reaching forward now and then to snatch a mouthful.

Though Mistah Mule was enjoying himself hugely, his driver, Johnnie Green, was anything but happy. He felt almost as if he were stealing hay himself. Of[84] course, the driver ahead of him knew nothing of what was going on behind his back. Perched far forward on his load, he could see neither Mistah Mule nor Johnnie, nor even Farmer Green and the bay, who soon caught up with the odd procession and plodded on at its rear.

So they finally reached the village. When the driver of the hay-wagon drove upon the platform of the hay scales in front of the village store, and stopped, Mistah Mule stopped too.

Farmer Green tied the bay to a post at the edge of the wooden sidewalk. Then he did his errand at the store—the errand that Johnnie Green would have done hours before, if Mistah Mule hadn’t balked on the hill.

When Farmer Green came out of the store he looked sharply at Mistah Mule’s feet.

[85]“He has lost a shoe,” he said. “I’ll drive him to the blacksmith’s shop to have him shod. And I’ll leave you there, Johnnie, to come home alone later, for I can’t wait. I ought to be in the hayfield this very minute.”

When they reached the blacksmith’s shop Mistah Mule behaved beautifully. As he stood with his halter-strap tied to an iron ring on the wall, nobody noticed what he said to old dog Spot.

“They’s goin’ to be fun here,” Mistah Mule remarked.

“You’d better be good,” the old dog growled. “The blacksmith knows how to handle rascals like you.”

Meanwhile Farmer Green was talking with the blacksmith himself.

“I can’t wait while you shoe my mule,” he explained. “If you’re gentle with him I don’t believe he’ll make any trouble.[86] He kicked when I first brought him home. But he’s well-mannered enough now—except that he balks once in a while.”

Farmer Green hadn’t been gone five minutes when Mistah Mule lashed out with his heels and sent a tin pail crashing against a cobweb-covered window.

Dodging the pail, Johnnie Green fell into a tub of water. The blacksmith shouted at Mistah Mule. And old dog Spot barked noisily.

“A bee done ’lighted on me,” Mistah Mule remarked with a grin.

After kicking the pail in the blacksmith’s shop, Mistah Mule hung his head low, closed his eyes, and pretended to fall asleep.

Johnnie Green, dripping from his plunge into the tub of water, when he dodged the flying pail, looked at Mistah Mule with great disgust. And so did old dog Spot. And so did the blacksmith himself.

“I don’t trust that fellow,” said the blacksmith.

“Nor I!” old Spot barked.

Mistah Mule opened one eye.

[88]“They’s all ’fraid of me!” he chuckled. “This blacksmith, he better take off his leather apron ’fore I tangle him up in it.”

“What’s that?” old Spot demanded.

“Just a-talkin’ to my own self!” said Mistah Mule. “You better run long home, ole dog. You’s liable to git hurt if you stays ’round here. You might git kicked right into the fire.”

Old dog Spot edged away a bit and tucked his tail between his legs. But he didn’t intend to leave. He meant to see everything that happened. He only hoped Johnnie Green would be safe.

Suddenly the blacksmith began to whistle a lively tune, quite as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Bring the ropes!” he called to his helper, who looked just as strong as the blacksmith, even if he wasn’t so tall.

In a jiffy they had wrapped several[89] loops of rope about Mistah Mule’s legs. He plunged and swayed. But the more he struggled, the tighter the blacksmith and his helper pulled the ropes. Finally the blacksmith untied Mistah Mule’s halter-strap. And soon Mistah Mule found himself lying upon the floor of the smithy.

Old dog Spot began to wag his tail and prance about Mistah Mule.

“Now what are you going to do?” he yelped. “You made all those threats. But the blacksmith is too smart for you. He’s got you where you can’t move.”

Mistah Mule lay quite still. His eyes were closed. And something very like a snore came from his soft nose. He made no sign that he had heard what old dog Spot said.

Not until four handsome new shoes were nailed fast to Mistah Mule’s feet[90] did the blacksmith let him get up.

“I wish everybody on our farm had been here to see you shod,” old dog Spot told him.

“An’ so does I!” Mistah Mule cried. “’Tain’t every day it takes two men an’ a boy an’ a ole dog to shoe anybody in this smithy.”

Mistah Mule trotted briskly home with Johnnie Green and old dog Spot together in the wagon. He never balked once. He knew there ought to be a good dinner waiting for him in the barn; and he was hungry.

Mistah Mule was standing at the foot of the lane, near the barn. Near him, Turkey Proudfoot was strutting about, looking for food now and then, in the mud, and gobbling once in a while.

Suddenly Mistah Mule gave his odd laugh, “Hee-haw!” And when he heard it, Turkey Proudfoot began to swell up, and dart his head toward Mistah Mule, and raise his feet and then put them down in the same spot. He was angry; he thought Mistah Mule was laughing at him. “What is there about me that amuses you?” he cried.

[92]Mistah Mule turned about with an air of great surprise.

“I didn’t know they was anyone here,” he replied. “I was just laughin’ at my own thoughts.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t noticed me here in this lane?” Turkey Proudfoot demanded hotly. “Why, I was here when Farmer Green turned you out of the barn!”

“I never knowed it,” Mistah Mule declared.

“Do you mean to say you haven’t heard my gobble?” Turkey Proudfoot asked in a loud voice. “Why, I’ve gobbled a hundred times if I have once.”

“I ain’t heard you,” said Mistah Mule with a grin.

Now, Turkey Proudfoot liked all the neighbors to notice him. He wanted all the farmyard folk to admire his walk, his[93] fine feathers, his hideous voice. And when Mistah Mule told him that he hadn’t even known he was anywhere around, Turkey Proudfoot grew angrier than ever. If Mistah Mule had been a person of his own size, Turkey Proudfoot would certainly have rushed at him, and fought him. But Mistah Mule could have kicked him over the fence without half trying. And Turkey Proudfoot knew it. There was nothing he could do except bluster. And he could always do that without half trying.

“You’ve been on this farm quite a while now,” he gobbled loudly. “You ought to know by this time that I’m a person of importance. When I go out for a stroll, all the farmyard folk turn their heads and stare at me.”

“Does they?” said Mistah Mule pleasantly. “What for does they do that?”

[94]“My goodness!” Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. “What a dull fellow you are! Haven’t you any eyes? Haven’t you any ears?”

Mistah Mule had both eyes and ears—especially ears. But he claimed not to know what Turkey Proudfoot meant.

“Haven’t you learned yet that I’m the ruler of the farmyard?” Turkey Proudfoot asked him scornfully.

And at that, Mistah Mule gave voice to his queer hee-haw once more.

“I was laughin’ at you that time,” he remarked.

Turkey Proudfoot was terribly angry when Mistah Mule laughed at him.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded.

“’Cause you thinks you’s the boss ’round here,” said Mistah Mule. “But you has to do just as Farmer Green tells you.”

“I don’t believe you’ve ever seen me fight,” Turkey Proudfoot retorted. “I can whip all the other gobblers on the farm.”

“Maybe! Maybe!” Mistah Mule replied. “But kin you whip Farmer Green?”

[96]“Can you?” Turkey Proudfoot asked.

“I kin kick him plumb across the barn floor,” Mistah Mule chuckled. “Kin you do that?”

Turkey Proudfoot knew that he couldn’t. But he wouldn’t actually say so.

“I could make Farmer Green run,” he remarked, “if only he would fight fairly. But he won’t. He fights with a stick.”

“Sho!” Mistah Mule exclaimed. “Do he?” And then Mistah Mule hung his head in thought. Soon he raised it again, however. And to Turkey Proudfoot he began to say something in a low voice. Whatever it was, Turkey Proudfoot did not seem to think well of it. He kept gobbling protests and crying, “No! No! No!”

But in the end Mistah Mule won him over. For Turkey Proudfoot agreed to do what Mistah Mule suggested.

[97]“Good!” Mistah Mule brayed. “Do just as I tells you and you’ll make him run sure.”

Then Turkey Proudfoot gave a run and a leap and a flap of his wings, all of which carried him to the top of the fence and thence into the farmyard. He began to strut back and forth between the house and the barns, keeping a sharp eye upon the woodshed door.

In a little while Farmer Green appeared in the doorway, carrying a pail, and started to walk to the pigpens.

Turkey Proudfoot gave a loud gobble and rushed at him. There was no stick anywhere in sight which Farmer Green could snatch up. Turkey Proudfoot had made sure of that.

“Go ’way, you old gobbler!” Farmer Green shouted.

But Turkey Proudfoot came on and on.

[98]Farmer Green was carrying something in his pail. It was sour milk for the pigs. And when Turkey Proudfoot was almost upon him, Farmer Green showered the sour milk all over him.

The proud ruler of the farmyard turned tail and ran. He looked like a white ghost as he scuttled, dripping, around a corner of the barn where nobody could see him.

Mistah Mule had watched everything as he stood with his head over the fence. And he again burst into his fiendish laughter.

“I reckon that ole Turkey done brag his last brag to me,” he chuckled.

Later, Turkey Proudfoot warned all the flock to have nothing to do with Mistah Mule.

“He’s a trouble-maker,” declared Turkey Proudfoot.

Johnnie Green wanted to go over the hill to play with a friend—a boy called “Red.”

“You may go,” his mother said, “but you must take an umbrella. We’re going to have rain.”

Now, Johnnie Green didn’t like to carry an umbrella.

“I don’t think it’s going to rain,” he grumbled. “I’ll ask Father if I need to take one.”

“Your father has gone to the village,” Mrs. Green told him. “Maybe you’d rather stay at home, anyhow.”

[100]“Oh, no!” Johnnie exclaimed quickly. And snatching up his umbrella, he slipped out of the door.

“I’m not going to walk ’way over the hill—not if I have to carry this umbrella,” he muttered as soon as he was out of his mother’s hearing.

A few minutes later he was throwing his saddle on Mistah Mule. And then he mounted him.

Mistah Mule cocked his eye at the closed umbrella in Johnnie Green’s hand.

“What for this boy got that club?” he asked himself. “He better not hit me with it.”

Once in the road, Johnnie urged Mistah Mule into a canter. He noticed that dark clouds were fast gathering overhead. And white wisps of cloud were beginning to whisk over the top of Blue Mountain.

“Giddap! Giddap!” he cried to Mistah[101] Mule. “We want to get to Red’s house before the storm breaks.”

They weren’t half way up the long hill when the wind began to whip the tree-tops and a driving rain swept across the valley, pelting them with great drops.

Johnnie Green fumbled with the strap of his umbrella. And then he raised it, spread, over his head.

All at once a cyclone seemed to strike him. Mistah Mule plunged and reared and bucked. Johnnie clung to the umbrella with one hand, to the pommel of the saddle with the other. The umbrella turned wrong side out at the very moment when the saddle-girth broke. And the next thing Johnnie Green knew, he found himself sitting in the middle of the road, in a puddle, holding the wrecked umbrella aloft.

Mistah Mule was standing a little distance[102] away with his back to the storm, hunched up, and with his head drooping.

Johnnie didn’t care to mount him again. With the soft mud sucking at his feet with every step he took, he led Mistah Mule home.

“There was a cyclone for a few moments,” he told the family while he dried himself in the kitchen.

Farmer Green had come home. And when he heard all of Johnnie’s story he quickly guessed the truth of the matter. Mistah Mule liked umbrellas even less than Johnnie Green.

Mistah Mule was in the back pasture. The only other farm folk there were Farmer Green’s oxen, Bright and Broad. They were a slow-going pair. They always took plenty of time for anything they did. They walked slowly, they lay down and got up slowly, they ate slowly, they thought slowly, they talked slowly. And when they spoke, usually they both said the same thing at the same time, in a sort of deep-toned chant.

Mistah Mule was not pleased with his companions. He thought that Bright and Broad were dull company. However, he[104] had to talk with somebody, for he dearly loved to wrangle. So he stayed near Bright and Broad a good deal of the time.

Now, Bright and Broad were far from ashamed of being slow. On the contrary, they prided themselves on their slowness.

“‘Slow but sure’ is our motto,” they remarked to Mistah Mule, speaking together and wagging their great heads in exactly the same, slow fashion.

“Huh!” grunted Mistah Mule, who—when he wasn’t ill—was always ready to disagree with anybody, about anything. “You-all ain’t so slow as what I is.”

Bright and Broad looked at each other and shook their heads. Then they burst into a rumbling laugh: “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

“What for you scoffin’ at me?” Mistah Mule demanded.

“We’ve seen you run,” they told him. “You’re fast.”

[105]“Prehaps! Prehaps!” Mistah Mule admitted. “But I kin be so slow, when I wants to be, that I doesn’t move a-tall.”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Again the great sides of Bright and Broad heaved with laughter. “We know you’re sometimes balky. But it’s easy to balk. A rock or a tree can do that. The question is, how slowly can you walk and not come to a halt?”

“Slower’n what you-all kin!” Mistah Mule retorted.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Pardon us! But we don’t think so,” Bright and Broad replied. Bright winked very slowly at Broad; and Broad winked very slowly at Bright.

Now, Mistah Mule was all for settling the dispute by talk. But Bright and Broad told him that all the talking in the world couldn’t convince them that they were wrong.

[106]“There’s just one way to end the argument,” they told Mistah Mule. “And that is to have a slow race.”

Although Mistah Mule didn’t know what they meant, he exclaimed that he was ready for anything.

“I doesn’t keer,” he said, “what kind o’ race it is. I knows I kin win it.”

Bright and Broad, the oxen, were going to race against Mistah Mule in the back pasture.

It was going to be a slow race. And since Mistah Mule hadn’t the slightest idea what a slow race was, Bright and Broad started to explain. As usual, they both began to speak the same words, at the same time.

“The race,” they told Mistah Mule, “will be from the fence here to the big pine tree on the other side of the pasture. We two will keep together, just as we always do. We’ll all three start at once.[108] If you reach the pine tree first, you lose. If we reach it first, we lose.”

“Don’t nobody win this race?” Mistah Mule inquired.

“Yes! Yes! Whoever reaches the pine tree last will win.”

Mistah Mule shook his head.

“It’s one agin two,” he complained. “Don’t ’pear like it’s a fair race. If one o’ you go too fast, the other kin hold him back.”

Bright and Broad swung their heads around and looked at each other again.

“What do you suggest?” Broad inquired of Bright and Bright inquired of Broad.

“Why not let him walk behind us?” each replied to the other.

“’Cause why?” Mistah Mule broke in.

“Don’t you see? It will be more than fair to you,” they explained. “So long[109] as you keep behind us, you’ll know that you aren’t going to reach the pine tree until after we get there. Only, of course, you mustn’t stop walking. If you find you can’t walk slowly enough, just swerve aside and pass us.”

Mistah Mule quickly agreed to this plan. He couldn’t see, now, how he could possibly lose the race.

“I hopes—” he remarked, as he took his place behind the oxen—“I hopes you-all doesn’t kick.”

“Never!” they assured him. And each whispered to the other, “That’s more than he can say about himself.”

“Are you ready?” Bright and Broad then boomed in their deep tones.

“Yes, sah! Yes, sah!” Mistah Mule replied. He answered twice, because he was talking to them both, and he wanted to be polite.

[110]“Go!” they bellowed. And each began very slowly to lift a foot off the ground.

Mistah Mule suddenly forgot that this was to be a slow race. When he heard the word “Go!” he gave a great leap, which carried him between Bright and Broad and thrust those heavy fellows rudely apart.

“Whoa, there!” they both cried. “Get back! If you must pass, go around us.”

The slow race across the back pasture had to be begun all over again. At the word “Go!” Mistah Mule had forgotten that it wasn’t a fast race. And he had plunged forward before he knew what he was doing.

After the second start he fell in behind the plodding oxen, Bright and Broad. But he soon found that he couldn’t walk as slowly as they could. First his nose nudged Bright. Then his nose nudged Broad.

“Stop that!” they both cried.

“’Scuse me!” said Mistah Mule.[112] “Move a little spryer—can’t you?”

“Ha!” they chuckled. “We knew we could beat you at this game.” They crowded against each other, so that Mistah Mule couldn’t wedge himself between them. And there was nothing he could do except thrust his head and neck alongside one of the pair. He chose Bright’s side.

Mistah Mule hadn’t taken six steps in this position when he gave a loud snort. And then he flashed past Bright and Broad so quickly that they looked as if they were moving backward.

“A bear!” Mistah Mule brayed. “Run! Run!”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” laughed Bright and Broad. “See him run! This is just a trick. He knows he can’t win the slow race fairly, so he’s trying to get us to run ahead of him.” They nodded wisely as[113] they trudged towards the big pine tree, which marked the end of the race.

And then—all at once they sniffed, and asked each other a question: “Do you notice a queer scent?” And like one ox they both looked around.

“A bear!” they both roared. And breaking into a lumbering gallop, they hurried after Mistah Mule, who was already nearing the fence on the other side of the pasture.

Quite breathless they reached the fence at last. But they were too heavy and clumsy to jump over it, as Mistah Mule had already done. Instead, they crashed their huge bodies against the fence and sent the rails flying. Through the great gap that they had made they dashed side by side. And they never stopped running until they reached the barn at the foot of the lane.

[114]Mistah Mule was waiting for them there.

“Somebody done win a race!” he brayed loudly.

Broad and Bright shot a glance of surprise at each other.

“But you ran much faster than we did!” they cried. “You can’t have won.”

“I isn’t said I winned it,” Mistah Mule retorted.

“Well, we certainly didn’t,” that honest pair insisted. “We didn’t even finish the race. We didn’t go near the pine tree.”

Mistah Mule laughed boisterously.

“Mistah Bear, he done win,” said Mistah Mule. “I looks back just once. An’ there he am, right under the big pine his own self.”

Farmer Green had just had the bad luck to have a loaded wagon sink hub-deep in a boggy place in the meadow, near the barnyard. The pair of bays were harnessed to the wagon. And they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—pull it out of the mire.

Farmer Green walked to the horse-barn, where his son Johnnie and the hired man were working.

“The load is stuck fast in the mud,” he told them. “If Bright and Broad weren’t ’way up in the back pasture they’d pull the wagon out. But it would take a good hour to drive them down here.”

[116]The oxen, Bright and Broad, were a famous pair. They were wonderfully strong—and wonderfully slow, too.

“There’s old Ebenezer. You might hitch him in front of the bays,” the hired man suggested.

Farmer Green shook his head.

“The old horse would pull until he dropped. I’m afraid he might hurt himself,” he replied.

“Why don’t you use the mule?” cried Johnnie Green.

“I could try him, I suppose,” said his father. “But I’m almost certain he wouldn’t pull an ounce.”

“Oh, do try him, Pa!” Johnnie Green begged. When he wasn’t driving Mistah Mule himself, Johnnie liked to see that stubborn fellow balk.

Both the old horse Ebenezer and Mistah Mule, who stood side by side in the barn,[117] pricked up their ears and listened to all this talk.

“Huh!” Mistah Mule grunted, as he cocked an eye at his neighbor. “They needn’t think I’se a-goin’ to hurt myself a-pullin’ on their ole wagon.”

“I don’t blame you the least bit,” the old horse Ebenezer told him. “To be sure, you’re a stout chap. Maybe you could yank the wagon out of the hole—if the bays would pull too—without much trouble. But why should you do that?”

It amazed Mistah Mule to hear such advice from old Ebenezer. And a very stubborn look came over his face.

“I could twitch that wagon out quick—if I wanted to,” he declared.

“But you don’t want to,” said Ebenezer. “If you tried—and failed——”

“Don’t talk to me, ole hoss!” snapped Mistah Mule. “You got ’nuff to ’tend to[118] if you only minds your own bus’ness.”

Old Ebenezer said no more. But he chuckled to himself when Farmer Green came and led Mistah Mule away.

He chuckled again when Mistah Mule came back a little later, holding his head very high.

“I showed ’em!” Mistah Mule brayed loudly. “I done pulled the load an’ those no-account bays too.”

Farmer Green told the hired man he was never so surprised in his life.

THE END