Not until four handsome new shoes were nailed fast to Mistah Mule’s feet did the blacksmith let him get up.
“I wish everybody on our farm had been here to see you shod,” old dog Spot told him.
“An’ so does I!” Mistah Mule cried. “’Tain’t every day it takes two men an’ a boy an’ a ole dog to shoe anybody in this smithy.”
Mistah Mule trotted briskly home with Johnnie Green and old dog Spot together in the wagon. He never balked once. He knew there ought to be a good dinner waiting for him in the barn; and he was hungry.
XXII
TURKEY PROUDFOOT
Mistah Mule was standing at the foot of the lane, near the barn. Near him, Turkey Proudfoot was strutting about, looking for food now and then, in the mud, and gobbling once in a while.
Suddenly Mistah Mule gave his odd laugh, “Hee-haw!” And when he heard it, Turkey Proudfoot began to swell up, and dart his head toward Mistah Mule, and raise his feet and then put them down in the same spot. He was angry; he thought Mistah Mule was laughing at him. “What is there about me that amuses you?” he cried.
Mistah Mule turned about with an air of great surprise.
“I didn’t know they was anyone here,” he replied. “I was just laughin’ at my own thoughts.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t noticed me here in this lane?” Turkey Proudfoot demanded hotly. “Why, I was here when Farmer Green turned you out of the barn!”