Farmer Green’s old horse, Ebenezer, stood in the barn and gazed none too pleasantly over the partition at his new neighbor in the next stall.
His neighbor, Mistah Mule, cocked one of his black ears at Ebenezer.
“Ole hoss,” he said with something like a grin, “I and you is goin’ to be hitched up together in the mornin’.”
This news almost took Ebenezer’s breath away.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Is Farmer Green going to work us in double harness? I—I can hardly believe it.”
“That what he done told his boy,” Mistah Mule declared. “But don’t you go to worryin’ yourself ’bout work. I kin show you plenty tricks to git outer workin’.”
The old horse Ebenezer stared coldly at Mistah Mule. Ebenezer was no shirk. And he didn’t like the thought of being driven with a lazy partner like this one.
“Where was your home before you came here?” he asked Mistah Mule.
“My real home is ’way down South,” the newcomer informed him. “I come North last spring. An’ I been spendin’ my time over where they buildin’ the new railroad.”
“So you’ve been working on the railroad this summer!” Ebenezer exclaimed.