“What’s this Farmer Green aimin’ to do now?” Mistah Mule asked him.
“You’ll find out the next time he drives us,” Ebenezer told him. And he would say nothing more.
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.”