from the ram.

"I must cover your red coat up with my apron, and then the ram can't see
it," said Grandma Bell. "It's the red color he doesn't like."

"'Cause why?" asked Margy.

"I don't know why--any more than I know why turkey gobblers and bulls
don't like red," answered her grandmother. "But we had better get out of
this meadow. I didn't know the ram was so saucy, or we should have gone
around another way."

"Will he bite us?" Margy went on.

"Oh, no. He may try to hit us with his head. But that won't hurt much, as
his horns are curved, and not sharp. Go on back, Bunko!" called Grandma
Bell to the ram, Bunko was his name. "Go on back!"

But Bunko evidently did not want to go back. He bleated some more, stamped
his feet, and shook his head. Margy's red coat was almost all covered now
by her grandmother's big apron that she wore when she want to pick wild
strawberries. But still the ram came on.

"Go on, Mother!" called Mrs. Bunker to Grandma Bell. "You take Margy to
the fence and I'll throw clumps of dirt at the ram."

This she did, hitting the ram on the head with soft clods of earth, while
Grandma Bell hurried to the fence with Margy.

"There we are!" cried the grandmother, as she set the little girl safely
down on the far side, away from the ram. "Now Bunko can't get us."

"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated Bunko. He shook his big, curved horns at Mrs. Bunker,
but he did not try to run at her and strike her with his head. Perhaps he
felt that, as long as the little girl with the red coat had gone out of
his meadow, everything was quite all right again.

"Well, that was quite an adventure," said Mother Bunker, as they were all
together again, and on their way to the strawberry hill. "Did the ram ever
chase you before, Mother?"

"Oh, no, but he often comes up to sniff at my dress when I take a short
cut through the pasture. But I'm not afraid of him, and he knows it. I
suppose he wondered what sort of new red flower Margy was."

"I picked some flowers," said the little girl, "but I dropped 'em when you
carried me, Grandma."

"Never mind. We can get more," returned Mrs. Bell.

On they went to the place where the wild strawberries grew. They brushed
aside the green leaves, and saw the fruit gleaming red underneath. They
filled little baskets with the berries, though I think the children ate
more than they put in the baskets.

"The old ram wouldn't like it here," said Russ, as he popped a berry into
his own mouth.