“I can’t wait while you shoe my mule,” he explained. “If you’re gentle with him I don’t believe he’ll make any trouble. He kicked when I first brought him home. But he’s well-mannered enough now—except that he balks once in a while.”
Farmer Green hadn’t been gone five minutes when Mistah Mule lashed out with his heels and sent a tin pail crashing against a cobweb-covered window.
Dodging the pail, Johnnie Green fell into a tub of water. The blacksmith shouted at Mistah Mule. And old dog Spot barked noisily.
“A bee done ’lighted on me,” Mistah Mule remarked with a grin.
XXI
THE BLACKSMITH WINS
After kicking the pail in the blacksmith’s shop, Mistah Mule hung his head low, closed his eyes, and pretended to fall asleep.
Johnnie Green, dripping from his plunge into the tub of water, when he dodged the flying pail, looked at Mistah Mule with great disgust. And so did old dog Spot. And so did the blacksmith himself.
“I don’t trust that fellow,” said the blacksmith.
“Nor I!” old Spot barked.
Mistah Mule opened one eye.