are--and you're just in time! For there's the wagon rattling down the
next hill. And old Ebenezer (that's the horse, please remember!) he'll
climb this rise as fast as he can, because he's in a hurry to get
home."

"He can't be half as anxious to reach home as I am," Daddy Longlegs
remarked. "And if he doesn't go his fastest after I'm aboard the wagon I
hope Johnnie Green will whip him hard."

"Johnnie can't do that," said Sandy Chipmunk. "His father won't let him
have a whip."

"Well, he could cut a switch, I should think!" Daddy Longlegs exclaimed.

But Sandy shook his head.

"Johnnie's grandmother wouldn't let him do that," he replied. "But you
don't need to worry. You'll get home soon enough."

Soon the two watchers saw the old horse Ebenezer come jogging up the
road. And then Sandy Chipmunk said something that sent Daddy Longlegs
into a flutter of excitement.

"Here they come!" cried Sandy. "You'd better stand right in the middle
of the road, so you'll be sure to stop them."

And the mere thought of doing such a dangerous thing as that made Daddy
Longlegs turn quite pale.

XIV

ONE WAY TO STOP A HORSE

EVERY one of Daddy Longlegs' eight knees began to shake, when Sandy
Chipmunk told him to stand in the middle of the road, in order to stop
the old horse Ebenezer, who was pulling the wagon in which Johnnie Green
and his grandmother were riding.

"I can't do that!" Daddy shrieked, shrinking away from the dusty road.
"I'm so small that they wouldn't see me and the first thing I'd know I'd
be run over.... You'll have to stop the wagon for me--you're so much
bigger than I am."

But Sandy Chipmunk said he didn't like to speak to Johnnie Green, on
account of a little trouble he had had with Johnnie's father over a
letter.

"Can't you wave your tail at him?" Daddy Longlegs besought him. "That
wouldn't be _speaking_ to him, you know. Wave your tail at Johnnie Green
until he stops the horse; and then you can run away, if you want to. And
while the horse is standing still I'll scramble into the wagon, without
anybody seeing me."

Now, Sandy Chipmunk was a good-natured person. And he saw that unless
the wagon was stopped, Daddy Longlegs was going to be terribly
disappointed. So he told Daddy that he would do what he could to help
him.

Then Sandy leaped nimbly to the edge of the watering-trough at one side
of the road and began waving his tail backwards and forwards, like a
flag.

"That's right