V
MISTAH MULE’S MEALS
Mistah Mule had a hearty appetite. And he was not at all backward about demanding food. Towards meal-time he would begin to paw the floor. And though the old horse Ebenezer told him again and again to stop, he paid not the slightest heed.
“You won’t be fed any sooner for making such a racket,” Ebenezer warned him.
“The longer they waits before they feeds me, the more noise I kin make,” Mistah Mule retorted. And Ebenezer had to admit that that seemed to be true.
Now, Mistah Mule always ate all his hay—and wanted another serving. But he wouldn’t touch the grain that Farmer Green set before him in a box. At least, he wouldn’t eat it. However, he stuck his nose near it, if it was ground corn and oats, and blew into it in a most ill-bred manner, so that the grain flew in every direction. Whole oats he would hardly even look at.
Old Ebenezer watched his neighbor’s actions with great scorn.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked Mistah Mule at last. “Why don’t you eat your grain?”
“’Cause I doesn’t care for any kind they’s given me,” Mistah Mule explained. “I is used to havin’ whole corn served to me. An’ I doesn’t see why folks ’spects me to eat what I doesn’t like. I reckon this Farmer Green’ll learn to take a hint before long.”
Well, strange to say, that very day Mistah Mule shot a glance of triumph at Ebenezer, because of something Farmer Green said to the hired man.
“I declare,” Farmer Green exclaimed, “I don’t see why this mule won’t eat his grain. There can’t be anything wrong with his teeth, for he chews his hay. The only reason I can think of is that he has always been fed something else; and he’s so stubborn he won’t eat what we give him.”
“Maybe he has had whole corn,” the hired man suggested.
Farmer Green nodded.
“I’ll hitch him and Ebenezer up and drive down to the gristmill,” he said. “Perhaps the miller has some corn that he hasn’t ground yet.”
Ebenezer chuckled when he heard that. But he wasn’t pleased because Mistah Mule was going to get the kind of grain he wanted. No! Ebenezer was thinking what a surprise Mistah Mule was going to have when he crowded over against the wagon-pole, as he had when Farmer Green drove them together the day before.
He hadn’t forgotten that Farmer Green had asked Johnnie to bring him a piece of leather, some tacks, and a hammer.