"We'll admit anything, Ananias," chirped up Billy; "only go ahead with
the story."

Slim shot a scathing glance at Billy, but seeing that all were waiting
breathlessly, he gave an impressive cough and started in.

"There was a farmer down our way," he began, "who was strictly up to
date. He wasn't satisfied to go along like the majority of old
mossbacks, year in and year out, doing the same old thing in the same
old way as it had been done for a hundred years. He tried all the new
wrinkles, subscribed to the leading farm papers, and studied the market
reports.

"He was looking over these one night when he saw that there was an
unusual demand for beef tongues and that they were bringing the biggest
price in the market that they had brought for a good many years past.
This set him thinking.

"You know how fond cattle are of salt. Well, this farmer set aside about
a dozen of his cows, to try an experiment with them. He kept them
without salt during the day so that they got crazy for it. Then at night
he tied them up in stalls, and hung a lump of rock salt by a string just
a little out of their reach. They'd stick out their tongues to get at it
but couldn't quite make it. At last, by straining hard they'd maybe
touch it. Of course, as they stretched, the effort gradually made their
tongues grow bigger, and--"

Here, Slim looked around rather dubiously to see if his hearers were
preparing to spring upon him, but they seemed as if held in the spell of
an awful fascination. So he took courage and went on:

"You know how it is with a blacksmith. The more he exercises his arm the
bigger the muscles get. You know that our dear Dr. Rally has often
impressed on our youthful minds that the more we use our brains the more
brains we'll have to use. Well, that's just the way it was with these
cows. Each day the farmer would put the salt a little further ahead of
them, and they'd keep stretching more and more, until finally their
tongues were three times the ordinary size. I tell you that farmer
cleared up a pile of money when he sent his cattle to market that fall,
and--"

"I should think," interrupted Fred, in a voice that he tried to keep
steady, "that their tongues would get in the way and choke them."

"You would think so," admitted Slim, easily, "but as I said, this farmer
was up to date and he had figured that out. He got a lot of rubber tubes
and taught the cows to curl their tongues around in those and keep them
o