I

THE UNRULY MULEY

After leaving the Muley Cow, who was wearing her new poke down by the
lane, Aunt Polly Woodchuck and Billy Woodchuck's mother met old Mr. Crow
again.

"Did you see her?" he asked them hoarsely.

"Yes!" they answered.

Mr. Crow gave them a sly leer. "What do you think of it?" he inquired.

They said that the poke was the strangest collar they had ever set eyes
on.

"Ha! ha!" the old black rascal laughed. "I see that you don't know what
it's for.... It's to keep the Muley Cow from jumping the fence into the
back pasture. Farmer Green put it around her neck this morning."

"Did you ever?" said Billy Woodchuck's mother.

"Well, I never!" said Aunt Polly.

"We expected to see a poke bonnet," they both told Mr. Crow.

That made him laugh again hoarsely.

"She wants to see you. The Muley Cow wants to talk with you," Aunt Polly
Woodchuck informed him.

"Is she feeling pleasant?" he asked.

"No, I shouldn't say she was," Aunt Polly replied.

"Then I'll fly over and call on her a little later," he decided. "But
first I must finish my breakfast." Thereupon he rose into the air and
sailed away toward the cornfield, leaving two very puzzled Woodchuck
ladies behind him.

If there was anything that Mr. Crow enjoyed more than another, it was
teasing some person that was angry. So he kept his word. As soon as he
had finished his breakfast he came back to the pasture and sought out
the Muley Cow.

"Good morning!" he said very politely.

"Ah, ha!" she cried. "You've been gossiping about me. You've been
telling everybody about this poke."

"It's most becoming," Mr. Crow said with a grin. "I supposed you'd like
to have the neighbors know you were wearing something new."

"Well, I don't!" she retorted. "It's bad enough to have a poke put on my
neck, at my age, without having the news spread all through Pleasant
Valley."

"You can thank yourself for the fix you're in," Mr. Crow told her
bluntly. "At your age you should have known better than to jump fences."

"How would you like it if you had to stay in this pasture day after
day?" the Muley Cow asked him.

Mr. Crow hemmed and hawed.

"How would you like it if you couldn't go into the cornfield?" she went
on.

Mr. Crow choked slightly but made no reply.

"How would you like it if I went up and down Pleasant Valley telling
everybody that you were a--"

But Mr. Crow didn't care to hear any more. He knew that the Muley Cow
was going to