Sometimes the Puppy Would Bite Spot's Tail.Sometimes the Puppy Would Bite Spot's Tail.(Page 73)
There were no more dull days for old dog Spot. When school opened in the fall he no longer moped around the farmhouse, waiting for Johnnie to come home. The puppy kept him too busy to notice Johnnie's absence.
At first Spot found it very pleasant to roll on the ground with his small friend, and pretend to bite him, and upset him off his somewhat wobbly legs. But as time passed Spot began to weary of never-ending play. There were moments when Spot wanted to lie still and doze. But as soon as he had settled himself for a nap the puppy was sure to come bouncing up and sprawl all over him. He would seize one of Spot's long ears between his teeth and give it a bit of a nip.Sometimes he would even pull Spot's tail.
Of course nobody can sleep under such interruptions. Spot learned that when he wanted to rest he had to hide in some place where the puppy couldn't follow him. And as the puppy became bigger Spot found it harder to slip away from him. The youngster would trail Spot into the barn and even as far as the hay-stack in the meadow.
Once the old dog hadwishedfor a puppy. Now, however, he could scarcely wait for this lively youngster to grow into a dog.
A whole year passed before Spot had any peace again. And when another summer had come, and Johnnie Green went visiting again, Spot muttered with a deep groan:
"I hope Johnnie will have sense enough not to bring another puppy with him when he comes home."
Mrs. Woodchuck was on her way home, waddling across the pasture. She had been making a call on Aunt Polly Woodchuck, the herb doctor, who lived under the hill. They had talked over all the news in the neighborhood. And Mrs. Woodchuck had her mind on some gossip that Aunt Polly had told her. Otherwise she might have noticed sooner that old dog Spot had spied her.
If he hadn't spoken he would certainly have caught her that time. For Mrs. Woodchuck was fat and couldn't run as fast as she used to. But when Spot's keen nose caught a scent that told him there was one of the Woodchuck family not far away he just had to give one long-drawn howl.
When Mrs. Woodchuck heard that dreadful sound she scurried for home. She dropped her knitting and the apple that Aunt Polly had given her. And she only managed to pop down the hole that was her front door with Spot scarcely a length behind her.
"Just missed her!" the old dog yelped. "How unlucky!"
"Just escaped!" Mrs. Woodchuck gasped. "How fortunate!"
She knew that she was safe. So she took her own time in crawling through the long hall that led to her one-room dwelling.
"Dear me!" she exclaimed as she entered her underground home and saw that it was empty. "Mr. Woodchuck and Billy are away. I must hurry and warn them that old dog Spot is prowling about the pasture."
Meanwhile Spot lingered at Mrs. Woodchuck's front door. He scratched in the dirt that was thrown up before it. He sniffed at the tracks that the Woodchuck family had made all about.
"I know now where that fat Mrs. Woodchuck lives," he growled. "I'll keep an eye on this hole. Some day I may be able to get between her and her home. And then—"
He did not finish what he was saying, but licked his lips as if he had just enjoyed a hearty meal.
For a long time Spot waited there. He could hardly have expected Mrs. Woodchuck to come out and invite him to enter her house. The most that she was likely to do would be to creep not quite to the upper end of her front hall and peer out to see what she could through the small round opening.
"That dame must have a family," Spot thought. "I'd like to meet them—whether there's one youngster or seven. The more the merrier for me."
If Spot had happened to look around just then he would have had his wish granted. Or if the wind had been blowing the other way he could have told, without looking around, that Mrs. Woodchuck's son Billy was gazing at him, with popeyes, from behind a near-by hummock. He had meandered homewards, pausing here and there to nip off a clover head or tear at a plantain leaf, little dreaming that old dog Spot was right in his door-yard.
When he caught sight of the unwelcome caller Billy sat up and took one good, long look at him.
Then Mrs Woodchuck's son turned and ran down the hillside as fast as his short legs would carry him. He didn't stop until he had reached the fence between the pasture and the meadow. Dashing in among the brakes that grew deep along the fence he cowered under the cover that they gave him.
All at once he felt quite ashamed of himself.
"I almost forgot the rule!" he chattered. "The rule says, 'When there's a Dog about, warn everybody!'"
Billy Woodchuck remembered, after he had fled from old dog Spot, that he ought to warn his family and his friends. So he sat up, stuck his head out of the tangle of brakes where he had hidden, and gave the danger signal, a sharp whistle.
"Dear me!" he said. "I fear Father and Mother won't hear that. And if they go home they'll run upon old dog Spot. And then there's no knowing what might happen."
He knew that his mother had gone to see Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who lived under the hill. And he knew that his father, with a few cronies, was enjoying a feast in Farmer Green's clover patch.
"I'll hurry over to Aunt Polly's first," he decided, "and tell Mother to beware the Dog."
So Billy Woodchuck scampered off toward the hill where Aunt Polly Woodchuck made her home. When he knocked at Aunt Polly's door and learned that Mrs. Woodchuck had left some time before Billy was much upset.
"Perhaps she went to the clover patch," Aunt Polly suggested. "You know your father sometimes forgets to go home unless somebody goes for him."
Well, Billy started off again. And he hadn't gone far when he heard a sound that made him sit up and listen. Like all his family, he had very sharp ears. And now, after cocking his head on one side for a few moments, he knew that what he heard was old dog Spot grumbling and growling.
"My goodness!" Billy Woodchuck gasped. "He's left our house. And if I don't look out he'll catch me."
At almost the same instant old Spot paused and sniffed the air.
"Ha!" he cried. "I smell a Woodchuck. And if I'm not mistaken it's a different Woodchuck from the one I chased a little while ago."
Billy Woodchuck and Spot began to run at the same time. Billy headed for home; and Spot headed for him.
Again old dog Spot was just a bit too late. Billy Woodchuck darted into the hole in the hillside not a second too soon. He could hear Spot panting close behind him.
"Such luck!" Spot growled. "There's another that's got away from me. There's the second one that I've run into that hole. I suppose they're chuckling inside their house and making all manner of fun of me."
The old dog was mistaken. Billy Woodchuck was not chuckling. He found nobody at home. It was plain that his parents were still abroad.
"They may be coming from the clover patch now," he groaned.Andif they are, they're sure to stumble upon that terrible creature at the door. I must warn them before it's too late."
While Spot was still snorting and snuffling around the Woodchuck family's front door, Billy Woodchuck crept out of the back door and started for the clover patch. Little did he know that his mother had already stolen out the same way, to warn him and his father.
When unwelcome callers come, a back door is sometimes a convenient thing to have about a house.
Old dog Spot never once guessed that there was a back door to the Woodchuck family's home in the pasture. He had chased Mrs. Woodchuck into her house. He had likewise hunted her son Billy into the same front door through which his mother had scrambled only a short time before.
"There must be more of these fat folks about the pasture," Spot thought. "I'll range around a bit and see if I can't surprise another."
So he began running about the pasture in big circles. And he was lucky enough, before long, to come upon Mr. Woodchuck himself, who had dined so heartily on clover heads that he had decided to go to his chamber and take a nap.
Spot was unlucky enough to lose him. Mr. Woodchuck had been feeling quite sleepy. But when he suddenly found himself pursued by a dog he was wide awake in an instant and running like a youngster.
He reached his home just in time.
"Well, that makes the third one that's inside the house," Spot muttered, shortly afterward, as he paused to get his breath.
Little did he know how mistaken he was. There wasn't even one of the Woodchuck family at home; for Mr. Woodchuck had at once hurried out the back way, because he wanted to find his wife and his son and tell them to keep away from old dog Spot.
Soon Spot took a few more turns around the pasture. And this time he ran across Mrs. Woodchuck again.
He had no sooner run her to earth once more than he found Billy for the second time.
"This is a twin brother of the fellow I chased home once before," Spot panted, little dreaming that Billy Woodchuck had come back into the daylight.
"This twin is just as spry as the other one was," Spot gasped as he reached for Billy right at his door—and missed him.
After that the old dog chased Mr. Woodchuck, then his wife, and next their son Billy Woodchuck. And he didn't succeed in catching any one of the three. Each of them beat him in the race to the Woodchuck family's front door.
Old Spot began to feel quite upset.
"I don't see what the matter with me to-day," he puzzled. "I hope I'm not getting so old that I'mweeble." (By that he meantweakandfeeble.)
"This last one makes eight that I've followed all the way to this door," Spot growled. "There can't be many more left in the pasture. I'm going to lie down behind this hummock and wait till they come out."
So he hid a little way off and watched closely.
He had been there a long time when Mr. Crow at last flew low over the pasture and alighted in a tree near-by.
"What are you waiting for?" he asked Spot.
"Woodchucks!" said Spot. "This burrow is full of them."
"Are you sure?" Mr. Crow inquired.
"I chased eight of them home," Spot explained.
"That's odd," said Mr. Crow. "There have been only three living here lately. And they don't live here any more."
"They don't!" Spot cried.
"No!" Mr. Crow told him. "They moved this afternoon."
Old dog Spot sprang to his feet.
"Where did they go?" he demanded.
"Ah!" Mr. Crow croaked. "That's telling." And he would say no more.
Then Spot went back to the farmyard.
Meanwhile the Woodchuck family were working hard, digging a new home for themselves at the other end of the pasture. They had all met at last on the edge of the clover patch. And Mr. Woodchuck had declared that they must move at once, because it wasn't safe to live in their old house any longer. He said that old dog Spot would be sure to keep an eye on it for some time.
They soon found a place that suited them all very well.
"We'll live here," said Mr. Woodchuck to his wife and their son Billy. "You two can take turns digging while I sit up and watch for old dog Spot. After all the running I did to-day it wouldn't be safe for me to do any digging."
That was Mr. Woodchuck's plan. And they followed it.
Great circus posters had covered one side of Farmer Green's barn for weeks. Ever since some men came and pasted them on the barn Johnnie Green had studied them carefully. He had practiced bareback riding on his pony, Twinkleheels. He had tried a high dive into the mill pond from the top of the dam. And much to old dog Spot's disgust Johnnie had tried to make him jump through a hoop covered with paper.
Spot had refused flatly to do anything of the kind. If he had known that his young master had half a notion to teach him to jump through a hoop of fire Spot would have run away—at least until circus time had come and gone.
"What puts all these queer ideas into Johnnie's head?" the old dog asked his friend Ebenezer, the horse, one day.
"Don't you know?" said Ebenezer. "It's those circus pictures. Johnnie won't think of anything else until the twenty-third of August."
"What's going to happen then?" Spot inquired.
"That's the day when the circus comes to the village," the old horse explained. "The whole family's going to see it."
"Do you expect to take them?"
"No!" Ebenezer replied. "Farmer Green will hitch the bays to the carryall. And to tell the truth, I'll be just as pleased to stay behind. It will be a great day to take naps here at home."
"It will be a lonesome day, with everybody away," said Spot. "I believe I'll go to the circus myself."
"Farmer Green may decide to leave you here," the old horse suggested.
"Then I'll surprise him," said Spot. "I'll hide behind a tree until Farmer Green has driven out of the yard. And then I'll follow the carryall."
The old dog began to tell everybody in the farmyard that he was going to the circus on the twenty-third of August. Of course some of the farmyard folk were jealous of him. The Rooster remarked that he didn't believe Spot would hear anycrowingat the circus that would be worth listening to. Turkey Proudfoot said that when it came tostruttingthe circus couldn't show Spot any that couldn't be beaten right there on the farm. And Henrietta Hen, who went to the county fair the year before, declared that she shouldn't care to go to the village except to see a poultry show.
But old dog Spot didn't mind anything they said. And when the twenty-third of August came he lingered about the farmyard. Early in the morning he saw Farmer Green run the carryall into the yard and harness the bays to it. Then the rest of the family came out of the house.
Spot, from his hiding place behind a tree, was pleased to see that Johnnie Green did not forget to bring a big lunch basket with him.
At last everybody was ready to start. And then, to Spot's dismay, Farmer Green caught sight of his nose, sticking out from behind a tree.
"That dog means to follow us," he cried. "I'll have to shut him up in the barn." And to old Spot he called, "Come here, sir!"
Spot didn't dare disobey. With his tail between his legs he crept up to the carryall. And though he whined and begged to be taken to the circus, Farmer Green caught hold of his collar and led him into the barn. Then Farmer Green closed the door.
Poor Spot had to give one loud howl when he heard the wheels of the carryall crunching on the gravel driveway.
The bays had to step lively that morning, for Farmer Green's family didn't want to be late for the circus parade in the village.
There were many other teams on the road, and almost nobody to be seen working in the fields. It seemed to Johnnie Green as if everybody had made up his mind to go to the circus. The only thing that troubled him was that his father didn't drive fast enough to suit him.
Half way from the farm to the village Farmer Green stopped the bays at a watering trough. Johnnie jumped out of the carryall to uncheck them, so they could drink. And there, beneath the carriage, was old dog Spot!
"Spot's followed us!" Johnnie Green cried.
The old dog whisked out from between the wheels and frolicked about Johnnie. He didn't act at all guilty.
"Well, I never!" said Farmer Green. "I certainly shut the barn door after I shoved him inside."
Spot gave a few short, sharp barks, as if to say, "Yes! But you forgot the window that was open."
He had scrambled through the window and overtaken the carryall before it reached the gristmill.
Well, what could Farmer Green do? They had come too far to send Spot back home.
"We'll have to take him with us now," said Johnnie Green's father, "though he'll be a nuisance because the village will be crowded to-day."
As soon as the bays had had their drink the party started on again. And old dog Spot was content. He did not mind the dust that the bays' heels kicked up as he followed beneath the carriage. And the faster they trotted, the more they pleased him; for he was as anxious as Johnnie Green to get to town and see the crowds and the fun.
Once a surly dog ran out from a farmhouse and tried to reach him. That made Spot somewhat uneasy.
"I don't want to stop to fight this fellow," he thought. "If I do, I'll be left behind."
Luckily Farmer Green cut at the strange dog with his whip and bade him be off.
Spot grinned as he sneaked away, yelping.
At last they entered the village. Main Street was thronged with people. Carriages and wagons of all sorts lined the road on both sides—glistening buggies with red ribbons tied in bows about the whip stocks, old lumber wagons with chairs set behind the driver's seat.
Johnnie Green had never seen such a gathering—not even at the fair.
"The whole county's here!" he exclaimed. "I hope we'll find a good place to stop, where we can see the parade."
They did. Farmer Green backed the bays into the last open space in the gutter. And Johnnie Green was greatly relieved.
The crowd made such a roar, with its talking and laughter, that old Spot cowered down under the carryall and almost wished he had stayed at home. The cries of men selling peanuts and popcorn, squawkers and toy balloons, mingled with the shouts of small boys and the squeals of their sisters.
"Goodness!" Spot murmured. "What a racket! It hurts my ears."
A moment later he stuck his nose out from beneath the carriage and burst into a mournful howl.
"Keep still!" Farmer Green ordered.
Little did he know, then, what made Spot cry like that. But in a minute or two Johnnie Green heard the same thing that Spot's sharp ears had caught first. And Johnnie howled too.
"Hear the band!" he shouted. "Hurrah! The parade's coming!"
The crash and blare of the circus band came nearer and nearer. Johnnie Green craned his neck out of the carryall, as it stood at the side of Main Street, and tried to get a glimpse of the parade.
Old dog Spot did not howl again, but stole out beside the bays and looked up the street too.
Soon a man with a tall, shiny hat on his head rode a proud, prancing horse around a corner. And behind him six more horses with gay plumes on their bridles made a wide turn as they swung into view. On top of the high red wagon that they drew sat the band, all in red suits and playing away like mad.
Spot couldn't help whining. Although the bandsmen were playing the liveliest air they knew, music always made Spot sad. And he was glad when the band wagon had passed on.
Other wagons, blazoned with red and gold, followed.
Old dog Spot's hair began to rise along his back and he sniffed, growling. He had noticed a strange mixture of the queerest odors. He didn't know, for a moment, whether to run away or not.
"Oh, see the tiger!" Johnnie Green shouted. "And the lions! And the monkeys! And the bear!"
"Seethem!" Spot yelped. "I say,smellthem!"
He felt better when the animals in their cages had gone creaking past. And he forgot his uneasiness as he watched dozens of horses, ridden by folk whose bespangled clothes glittered in the sunlight.
Then came a funny man in a little, two-wheeled cart, driving a donkey. This was the clown. He bowed and smiled to everybody, right and left, and even threw kisses at some of the girls. His painted face, his bag-like clothes, and his odd little round, pointed hat made Johnnie Green laugh. And to Johnnie's great delight, when the clown saw Spot he whistled.
Old Spot was all for dashing out into the street. But Farmer Green wouldn't let him do that. Spot had to be content with barking at the clown.
Then a man on a brisk little horse came down the street. He had a big voice. And he kept using it all the time, shouting so everybody would be sure to hear, "Look out for your bosses! The elephants are coming!"
And they came. The elephants came. When Spot saw their huge forms plodding down Main Street he dived beneath the carryall again and shivered until the last one had passed along.
The bays stirred restlessly as the elephants neared them. And the younger of the pair snorted with fear.
Farmer Green talked to them in a soothing voice and told them there wasn't any danger. But nobody thought of talking to old dog Spot. Every one forgot about him. And he was just as badly frightened as the bays, especially when a terrible tooting and screeching burst forth.
Spot jumped almost out of his skin.
"Sakes alive!" he howled. "What awful voices the elephants have!"
"The steam calliope!" Johnnie Green cried. "And that's the end of the parade."
The Green family ate their luncheon in the carryall on Main Street, after the circus parade had passed. They didn't forget to give old dog Spot something to eat out of the big basket that they had brought with them from home. Although they hadn't expected him to go to the village with them, there was more than enough food for everybody. Even Johnnie Green's appetite wasn't equal to all the goodies that his mother had provided.
People were already starting for the circus grounds on the outskirts of the village. Johnnie Green noticed them uneasily.
"We don't want to be late for the show," he reminded his father.
"We'll get there in time," Farmer Green assured him.
And they did. Soon they followed the crowd through the village streets until they came in sight of the "big top," the great tent with flags flying above it, and smaller tents all around.
Farmer Green turned the bays into a yard near-by, where he unharnessed and fed them. Then he tied one end of a rope to Spot's collar and fastened the other end to a carriage wheel.
"There!" he said. "Now we're ready."
Old dog Spot didn't want to be left behind. He tugged at the rope and whined.
"Be quiet!" Johnnie Green's father said to him. "You followed us to the village. And now you'll have to behave yourself. They wouldn't let you into the show."
Then the Green family turned their backs on him.
"They needn't think they can keep me here," Spot growled. "I didn't run all the way from the farm to the village to be tied to a wagon wheel."
Johnnie Green and his father and mother hadn't been gone a quarter of an hour when Spot succeeded in slipping his collar over his head. Then he dashed out of the yard and ran to the circus grounds as fast as he could go.
Spot mingled with the crowds of people that were pouring into the big tent. He worked his way in and out among the throng, all but tripping many of the pleasure seekers.
Though he looked everywhere, he couldn't find the Green family. They had already passed through the entrance and were enjoying the sights inside the canvas.
At last Spot met a man—a circus man—who was very friendly. It was pleasant to get a kind word from somebody, after so many people had told him to "get out," and had given him a shove.
This kindly person called Spot into a low tent and patted him. He gave Spot a bit of meat and even thought to offer him a drink of water.
"This is a fine pointer," the man remarked to a friend of his who was with him. "He hasn't any collar; so he must be anybody's dog. And he might as well be mine."
Spot wagged his tail. He didn't quite understand what his new acquaintance was saying. But it seemed to be something nice.
And then Spot decided, suddenly, that he had stayed in that tent long enough. For the pleasant man found a piece of rope and tried to tie it about Spot's neck.
"I've been tied up once to-day; and once is enough," Spot growled. Slipping out of the man's grasp, Spot ran out of doors.
Both men followed him. For a few minutes they chased him. One of them tripped over a guy rope and sprawled on the ground. And to escape the other Spot dodged under a canvas wall where it lifted slightly at the bottom.
He found himself in a huge tent where hundreds of people sat all around on tiers of seats. Men and horses were capering about in the center of the place. And somewhere a band was playing.
He was under the big top.
Old dog Spot was bewildered. When he crawled under the canvas he had not dreamed that he was entering the main tent of the circus. He saw so many strange sights that he didn't know whether to bark or to crawl away and hide somewhere. Yet among all those people he felt lonely. He couldn't see anybody he knew.
All at once the bandsmen began to play louder than ever. They seemed to be trying to burst their horns—or themselves. And men in flowing robes, each one standing in a sort of little two-wheeled cart and driving four horses abreast, came tearing past the place where Spot was standing.
It was a race! And if there was one thing that Spot liked more than another it was a race of any kind. He gave a few delighted barks and ran after the galloping horses.
Spot followed them twice around the big tent. And just as he fell into a jog—for the race was finished—he heard a whistle that gave him a great thrill. He stood still for an instant. Then he dashed toward the nearest seats.
A moment later he was fawning upon Johnnie Green, who sat in the lowest row and seemed as glad to see Spot as Spot was to see him.
Lying between Johnnie's feet, Spot watched the rest of the show.
At last the circus was over. The Green family, with Spot at their heels, went back to the place where they had left the bays and the carryall. And in a few minutes more they were on their way back to Pleasant Valley and home.
That morning everybody on the road had seemed to be in a great hurry to get to the village. And now, late in the afternoon, everybody was in just as great a hurry to get away from it. Farmer Green kept the bays at a spanking trot, only pausing to let them breathe now and then on the hills.
Spot, however, was not in such haste that he didn't stop and give a good trouncing to the dog that had rushed out at him earlier in the day. Spot sent the surly fellow yelping into his master's yard. Then he rushed down the road to overtake the carryall.
But, to everybody's surprise, when they reached home old dog Spot was missing.
"He'll come back," Farmer Green said. "Probably he's stopped somewhere to chase a rabbit or something. He'll be along after a while."
But after the cows were milked old Spot was still absent. And after the family had eaten supper he had failed to appear. Bedtime came. Still no Spot!
Johnnie Green felt very sad when he went upstairs.
He felt even worse when morning came. He had hoped that Spot would be in the yard, begging for his breakfast.
Johnnie Green was able to eat only a little of his own breakfast. And as soon as he left the table he went to the barn and harnessed his pony, Twinkleheels, to the little buggy with the red wheels.
Then Johnnie started for the village.
Johnnie Green drove his pony, Twinkleheels, back over the road that led to the village. Now and then he stopped at a farmhouse to inquire whether anybody had seen old dog Spot, who had vanished on the way home from the circus the evening before.
Nobody had set eyes on him. And Johnnie Green drove on and on, feeling more and more miserable all the while.
At last, as he turned a sharp bend of the road, he heard a bark. There was no mistaking it. It was Spot's.
There was a joyful meeting then. Johnnie sprang out of the buggy and Spot sprang into his arms. And Johnnie hugged the old fellow tightly, right there in the middle of the road.
"What in the world has kept you here ever since yesterday?" Johnnie asked.
Spot must have understood. Anyhow, he dashed to one side of the road. And, following him, Johnnie found there a robe that belonged to his father. It had dropped out of the carryall the evening before, when the Green family were on their way home from seeing the circus. Nobody in the carriage had missed it. But old Spot, running under the carriage, had seen it fall. And he had stayed behind to guard it all through the long night.
Of course Spot couldn't tell Johnnie Green all this. But Johnnie wasn't slow in guessing what had happened.
He picked up the robe and put it under the seat of the little buggy. Then he and Spot both jumped in. And Johnnie turned Twinkleheels' head toward home.
Back at the farm almost everybody said that old dog Spot was a hero. Farmer Green exclaimed that Spot was a faithful old fellow. And Mrs. Green set out such a meal for him as Spot had never seen before in all his life.
Now, there were two or three of Spot's neighbors in the farmyard that didn't like the praise he was getting. Turkey Proudfoot, the gobbler, remarked that if people didn't know enough to come home to roost at night he saw no reason for making a fuss about it. Miss Kitty Cat declared that so far as she was concerned she would have been just as well pleased if Spot hadn't come back to the farm at all. And Henrietta Hen had more to say than anyone else. She hurried up to old dog Spot himself and insisted on talking with him.
"Huh!" she exclaimed. "You only spent one day at the circus, while last fall I stayed a whole week at the county fair."
"Did you hear a band at the fair?" Spot asked her.
"Yes!"
"Did you see any races?"
"There were races every day; but I didn't care to watch them," Henrietta Hen answered.
"Did you see any elephants at the fair?" Spot demanded.
"Elephants?" said Henrietta Hen. "What are elephants?"
Spot pointed—with his nose—to one of the posters on the barn.
"There's a picture of some elephants," he told her. "And I must say it's a good one."
"There were no elephants at the county fair," Henrietta Hen admitted as she gazed at the circus poster on the side of the barn. "Why, every one of them has two tails!" she cried. "I don't see how they know whether they're going backward or forward."
"Maybe they don't know," Spot retorted. "Maybe that's part of the fun in being an elephant. For I suppose there's fun of some sort in being anybody, even a-a-a—"
"Even awhat?" Henrietta snapped. "Were you going to say aHen?"
"I was," Spot replied. "But I remembered that it wouldn't be polite."
"I should say not!" Henrietta Hen cackled. "I should say not!" And then, being very angry, she hurried off to tell the rooster what had happened.
"I'll have to be careful how I talk to these farmyard folks," Spot muttered. "They haven't had a chance to learn some of the things that I know.
"For I've been to the village and seen the world—and the circus, too," added old dog Spot.
Transcriber's Notes:The page numbers in the List of Illustrations do not reflect the new placement of the illustrations, but are as in the original. All errors from the original book were kept and are noted below.Chapter VI: Additional "e" ("I was going to give you that old fishing rod of mine if you'd help carry in the wood," Farmer Greene went on.)Chapter XIII: Additional "r" (And after the third miss old Sport turned tail and ran away.)Chapter XVII: Missing open quotation mark (And if they are, they're sure to stumble upon that terrible creature at the door. I must warn them before it's too late.")
Transcriber's Notes:The page numbers in the List of Illustrations do not reflect the new placement of the illustrations, but are as in the original. All errors from the original book were kept and are noted below.