Farmer Green tightened the reins and called to him in a calm, firm voice, “Steady, boy! Whoa! Whoa!”
Mistah Mule soon stopped his struggling. “A whole swarm of hornets done stung me,” he said to Ebenezer. “Didn’t they sting you, ole hoss?”
“I felt nothing,” Ebenezer replied.
For a few minutes Mistah Mule stayed on his own side of the road, where he belonged. But as soon as his skin stopped tingling he edged over toward the wagon-pole once more.
The old horse Ebenezer chuckled.
“Mistah Mule will get stung again as soon as he touches the pole,” he said to himself. He wondered how many times Mistah Mule would press against the sharp tacks which Farmer Green had driven through a piece of leather and then nailed to the wagon-pole, with their ends pointing at Mistah Mule. It was no wonder that when they pricked him, Mistah Mule thought they were hornets.
Old Ebenezer watched his team-mate narrowly. Soon he both saw and felt Mistah Mule lurch against the pole. No sooner had the black rascal touched it than he sprang away again with a grunt.
“Hornets agin!” he exclaimed. “Sakes alive! I declare I never see such a powerful lot as they is hereabouts.”
“Maybe if you kept away from the wagon-pole they wouldn’t touch you,” Ebenezer suggested.
“Shucks! What’s the pole got to do with my bein’ stung by these here hornets?” And Mistah Mule “crowded the pole” again—to use Farmer Green’s words.