XXVIIA GOOD RACE SPOILED
Theslow race across the back pasture had to be begun all over again. At the word “Go!” Mistah Mule had forgotten that it wasn’t afastrace. And he had plunged forward before he knew what he was doing.
After the second start he fell in behind the plodding oxen, Bright and Broad. But he soon found that he couldn’t walk as slowly as they could. First his nose nudged Bright. Then his nose nudged Broad.
“Stop that!” they both cried.
“’Scuse me!” said Mistah Mule.“Move a little spryer—can’t you?”
“Ha!” they chuckled. “We knew we could beat you at this game.” They crowded against each other, so that Mistah Mule couldn’t wedge himself between them. And there was nothing he could do except thrust his head and neck alongside one of the pair. He chose Bright’s side.
Mistah Mule hadn’t taken six steps in this position when he gave a loud snort. And then he flashed past Bright and Broad so quickly that they looked as if they were moving backward.
“A bear!” Mistah Mule brayed. “Run! Run!”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” laughed Bright and Broad. “See him run! This is just a trick. He knows he can’t win the slow race fairly, so he’s trying to get us to run ahead of him.” They nodded wisely asthey trudged towards the big pine tree, which marked the end of the race.
And then—all at once they sniffed, and asked each other a question: “Do you notice a queer scent?” And like one ox they both looked around.
“A bear!” they both roared. And breaking into a lumbering gallop, they hurried after Mistah Mule, who was already nearing the fence on the other side of the pasture.
Quite breathless they reached the fence at last. But they were too heavy and clumsy to jump over it, as Mistah Mule had already done. Instead, they crashed their huge bodies against the fence and sent the rails flying. Through the great gap that they had made they dashed side by side. And they never stopped running until they reached the barn at the foot of the lane.
Mistah Mule was waiting for them there.
“Somebody done win a race!” he brayed loudly.
Broad and Bright shot a glance of surprise at each other.
“But you ran much faster than we did!” they cried. “You can’t have won.”
“I isn’t said I winned it,” Mistah Mule retorted.
“Well,wecertainly didn’t,” that honest pair insisted. “We didn’t even finish the race. We didn’t go near the pine tree.”
Mistah Mule laughed boisterously.
“Mistah Bear, he done win,” said Mistah Mule. “I looks back just once. An’ there he am, right under the big pine his own self.”