e sides of their faces pulled their
lower jaws up and down and sideways, and the food was caught over and
over again between the blunt grinding teeth in the back part of their
mouths, and was crushed, squeezed, and turned until it was fine, soft,
and ready to swallow into the second stomach.

Then the Cattle do not have to think of it again, but while they are
doing something quite different, and perhaps forgetting all about it,
there are many nerves and muscles and fine red blood-drops as busy as
can be, passing it into the third and fourth stomachs, and changing the
strength of the food into the strength of the Cattle. The Cows and the
Oxen do not know this. They never heard of muscles and nerves, and
perhaps you never did before, yet these are wonderful little helpers and
good friends if one is kind to them. All that Cattle know about eating
is that they must have clean food, that they must eat because they are
hungry and not just because it tastes good, and that they must chew it
very carefully. And if they do these things as they should, they are
quite sure to be well and comfortable.

The Oxen were standing by the barn door, and the Calves were talking
about them. They liked their uncles, the Oxen, very much, but like many
other Calves the world over, they thought them rather slow and
old-fashioned. Now the Colts had been saying the same thing, and so
these half-dozen shaggy youngsters, who hadn't a sign of a horn, were
telling what they would do if they were Oxen. Sometimes they spoke more
loudly than they meant to, and the Oxen heard them, but they did not
know this.

"If I were an Ox," said one, "I wouldn't stand still and let the farmer
put that heavy yoke on my neck. I'd edge away and kick."

"Tell you what I'd do," said another. "I'd stand right still when he
tried to make me go, and I wouldn't stir until I got ready."

"I wouldn't do that," said a third. "I'd run away and upset the stone in
a ditch. I don't think it's fair to always make them pull the heavy
loads while the Horses have all the fun of taking the farmer to town and
drawing the binder and all the other wonderful machines."

"Isn't it too bad that you are not Oxen?" said a deep voice behind them.
The Calves jumped, and there was the Off Ox close to them. He was so
near that you could not have set a Chicken coop between him and them,
and he had heard every word. The Calves did not know where to look or
what to say, for they had not been spe