“He can’t be running away,” Johnnie muttered, as if trying to put out of his head any notion that Mistah Mule might be doing that very thing. And then Johnnie began to pull upon the reins. “Whoa!” he cried, not meaning that he wanted Mistah Mule to stop, but only that he wished him to gallop more slowly.
Well, Mistah Mule had promised the old horse Ebenezer that he would do exactly as Johnnie Green said. So now, when his rider cried, “Whoa!” he stiffened his legs and came down upon all fours instantly. He stopped short. Nobody could say that he hadn’t obeyed Johnnie Green.
But Johnnie Green himself did not stop so quickly. On he went. He shot along Mistah Mule’s neck, slipped over his head, in spite of a frantic clutch at Mistah Mule’s ears, and sailed sprawling through the air.
Some distance in front of Mistah Mule, Johnnie Green struck the ground. Though the grass was almost knee-high, Johnnie found his landing-place far from soft. And while he lay there, gasping for breath, Mistah Mule suddenly turned and trotted toward the farm buildings.
Johnnie struggled to his feet and ran after him. He tried to call out to him to stop. But not a word could he utter.
There was a great flurry in the farmyard when Mistah Mule came home with his saddle empty. Later, in the barn, the old horse Ebenezer spoke to him very severely. But Mistah Mule declared that it wasn’t his fault at all that Johnnie Green had been thrown.
“That boy,” he told Ebenezer, “he done say, ‘Whoa!’ An’ I whoaed!”
XI
TROUBLESOME MR. CROW
Though they both lived on the same farm, which belonged to Farmer Green, Mistah Mule and the Muley Cow were not on speaking terms. The Muley Cow had spent years there. She had seen so many queer strangers come and go that she paid little heed to new arrivals unless she knew that they were going to be what she called “permanent,” meaning that they were there to stay.
Of course she began to hear about Mistah Mule, from the day when he kicked Farmer Green. And she said then that Mistah Mule wouldn’t be there long. She had such a poor opinion of him that she wouldn’t even turn her head to look at the newcomer about whom all her friends were talking.