aking very politely. The one who
had just spoken wanted to act easy and as though he did not care, so he
raised one hind hoof to scratch his ear, and gave his brushy tail a toss
over one flank. "Oh, I don't know," said he.

"I used to talk in just that way when I was a Calf," said the Off Ox,
with a twinkle in his large brown eyes. "All Calves think they'll do
wonders when they're grown."

"I know I thought so," said the Nigh Ox, who had followed his brother.

"Well, if you wanted to," asked the Red Calf, "why don't you do those
things now?" The others wondered how he dared to ask such a question.

"It doesn't pay," said the Nigh Ox. "Do all your frisking in playtime. I
like fun as well as anybody, yet when our yoke is taken from its peg, I
say business is business and the closer we stick to it the better. I
knew a sitting Hen once who wanted to see everything that happened. She
was always running out to see somebody or other, and sometimes she
stayed longer than she meant to. I told her she'd better stick to her
nest, and she said she didn't believe in working all the time."

"How soon did her Chickens hatch?" asked the Calves all together.

"Never did hatch, of course," chuckled the Nigh Ox. "She fooled herself
into thinking she was working, and she made a great fuss about her legs
aching and her giving up society, but she couldn't fool that nestful of
eggs. They had gotten cold and they knew it, and not one of them would
hatch."

"Wasn't she ashamed then?" asked the Calves.

"Didn't act so," snorted the Nigh Ox. "Went around talking about her
great disappointment, and said she couldn't see why the other Hens had
so much better luck."

The Off Ox chuckled. "He told her that he guessed it might have been
something besides bad luck, and that the next time she'd better stay on
her nest more. Then she asked him how many broods of Chickens he had
hatched. Ho-ho-ho!"

Everybody laughed, and the Calves wondered how the Nigh Ox could think
of it without being angry. "It wouldn't pay to be angry," he said.
"What's the use of wasting a fine great Ox temper on a poor little Hen
rudeness?"

This made them think. They remembered how cross and hot and
uncomfortable they often became over very small things that bothered
them, and they began to think that perhaps even Calf tempers were worth
caring for.

At last the Black Calf, the prettiest one in the yard, said, "Do you
like drawing that flat wagon which hasn't any w