I told him all of my secrets,
And he kept them without fail,
With never a sign that he knew them
But a wag of his short, stump tail.
Long years have passed since I heard them.--
The sound of his gruff bow-wows,
As he tagged my heels in the good old days
When we went after the cows.
"Those are very good verses, Mrs. Goose," your Aunt Amy said when the last line had been read, and she replied as she plumed her feathers:
"So I think, although Mr. Crow says they are foolish; but that's because he doesn't like Mr. Towser Dog. What I admire about them is that they show what a good friend to a boy an animal can be. Now if Sammy Boy had made friends with the calf, he wouldn't be in the house this very minute waiting for his broken arm to get mended."
WHEN SAMMY TEASED THE CALF.
"How was that, Mrs. Goose?" your Aunt Amy asked.
"It was something that began a long time ago on the next farm; but wasn't finished till last week. You see a little boy calf was born over there once upon a time, and no sooner did the poor little thing come into this world than Sammy Boy thought it great fun to drive him from his mother, beat him with a stick, pull his tail, and do all kinds of mean things.
"'You're a mean, selfish, cruel boy,' the calf said to himself, when he was forced to put up with whatever Sammy felt like doing to him. 'I'll get even with you if it takes me years to do it--You think I can't remember, because I don't talk the same way you do; but just wait and see!'
"Of course Sammy didn't understand what the calf said, and he poked him all the harder with a big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun. Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he didn't dare pull his tail, or poke him with a stick.
"One day when Mr. Calf was three years old, and the folks called him Mr. Bull, Sammy went out to look at his pigeons, which he wickedly keeps shut up in a little box, and some one had left the pasture bars down.
"Mr. Bull was standing near-by, and when he saw Sammy he said to himself, as he lowered his head and stuck his tail straight up in the air: