“Johnnie ought to be coming along any minute now,” he said to the hired man.
“He ought to, unless that mule has taken a notion to balk,” the hired man replied.
“Oh! I don’t think he’ll do that,” said Farmer Green. “He hasn’t balked for a long time.”
But when another hour had slipped by and Johnnie and Mistah Mule were still missing, Farmer Green began to feel uneasy. So he hitched one of the bays to a buggy. And away he went, down the road, with old dog Spot racing along after him.
Spot kept carefully out of sight, beneath the buggy, until they reached the bridge. Then he dashed out and begged for a ride. He knew that he was too far from home for Farmer Green to send him back.
Farmer Green stopped the bay and told Spot to jump up. Then they hurried on again.
“There they are!” Farmer Green exclaimed as the bay began to climb the hill. “I was wrong. That mule can’t be trusted. I was foolish to think he’d ever be any good.”
“Just what I’ve said all the time!” Spot barked sharply.
Johnnie Green heard him. He turned around and looked down the road. Then he stood up in the wagon, waved his hat, and shouted.
And then—just because he was tired of standing there, and just because he liked to do what people didn’t expect—Mistah Mule suddenly started forward. Johnnie Green clutched at the wagon-seat to save himself from a spill.