he had squalled at the top of his hoarse voice that he was going to stay
as far from the pasture as he could get.

"What's the matter?" Snowball asked Mr. Crow. "Don't you like salt?"

Mr. Crow made a wry face.

"No, I don't!" he spluttered.

"Well, just because you don't happen to care for salt is no reason for
your being so angry," Snowball told him.

And then Mr. Crow almost took his breath away.

"I agree with you," he said gruffly! And Mr. Crow was a person who was
never known to agree with anybody! So that was an astonishing remark for
him to make.

"Then I suppose you'll get over being angry, at once," Snowball
ventured.

"I won't!" Mr. Crow thundered. "And take a bit of advice, young fellow:
Don't go near the salting party! It will be dangerous," he added darkly.

"Why will it be dangerous?" Snowball inquired.

The old gentleman shook his head and put on a very wise look.

"I don't believe you've ever been at a salting party," he said.

And Snowball confessed that he hadn't.

Whereat Mr. Crow nodded his head up and down several times and looked
even wiser than before.

"It's lucky for you, my lad, that you told me about this affair," he
declared. "For I'm going to keep you out of a peck of trouble. Don't you
go near the party! Keep just as far away from it as you can! When you
see Johnnie Green come inside the pasture you scramble over the stone
wall and hide!" And now he shook his head.

"It's a pity--" he sighed--"a pity you can't fly, or climb a tree."

He was so gloomy that Snowball couldn't help feeling uncomfortable. And
all he could manage to say was one word which he had hard work to
stammer out. It was "W-w-why?"

"Because it's just a trick!" Mr. Crow explained. "It's a trick to catch
you. This trick of salting the sheep is as old as the hills. But I
suppose you're so young you never have happened to hear of it. I must
say," he added, "I'm surprised that the Muley Cow didn't take the
trouble to tell you all about it."

"Maybe she's too young to know about it, too," Snowball suggested.

"Young!" Mr. Crow cried with a short, mirthless laugh. "The Muley Cow's
not young. She's the oldest cow on the farm. If the truth must be told,
she's so old that Farmer Green wouldn't keep her if it weren't that
Johnnie Green thinks she belongs to him. And he'd raise a terrible row
if his father sold her."

"Are you too young to explain about this trick that you just warned me
against?" Snowball a