!"

"Where is she?" his father asked him.

"In the orchard!" Johnnie said.

Farmer Green caught up a whip--a whip with a long lash and a limber
stock. With Johnnie following him he ran out of the barn, across the
yard, and into the orchard. "Don't whip her for jumping the fence!"
Johnnie pleaded.

His father never said a word.

"I wish I hadn't told him," Johnnie Green panted. He was doing his best
to keep up with his father. He thought he would rather take a whipping
himself than have the Muley Cow get one. But he didn't know how he could
ever make his father feel the same way. He had noticed that his father
reached for the whip as if he fully intended to use it.

When Farmer Green reached the Muley Cow he did a queer thing. At least
it seemed queer to Johnnie. Instead of whipping the Muley Cow, his
father ran the whip-stock down her throat!

"What's the matter?" Johnnie asked. "Why do you do that?"

"She's choked over an apple," his father explained, "and I'm trying to
shove it along."

Well, it wasn't a great while before the Muley Cow seemed to be quite
herself again.

"Rough treatment!" Farmer Green remarked. "But it certainly fixed her."

"Why did she choke?" Johnnie wanted to know.

"She tried to swallow a whole apple," said his father. "Whenever you
feed such things as apples or potatoes to a cow you must always chop
them into pieces.... Now drive the old cow to the barn," he told
Johnnie. "She'll have to wear a poke again."

When the Muley Cow heard that she wondered if she hadn't been very
foolish.

XIX

A QUESTION OF LUCK

"How lucky some people are!" said old Mr. Crow. He was talking to the
Muley Cow, in the pasture. And though she didn't specially care for his
company, she was curious enough to ask him what he meant.

"I was just thinking," Mr. Crow explained, "I was just thinking what a
hard life I lead, and how I have to hunt around to find whatever I can
to eat. In winter it's usually poor pickings for me. But some people
have their meals set right under their noses. They don't even need to
stir."

"I suppose," the Muley Cow ventured, "you're thinking about us cows."

"I am," he admitted. "You have such an easy time that often I actually
wish I had been born a cow myself."

The Muley Cow shook her head.

"That would have been impossible," she murmured.

Old Mr. Crow flared up at once.

"I'd like to know why!" he shrieked. He was always ill-mannered when he
was angr