"I suppose," said his father, "we ought to get the road to the schoolhouse cleared first."
"Oh, no!" cried Johnnie. "Let's leave that till the last."
"If we left it for you and Twinkleheels to clear, you wouldn't get back to school before spring," Farmer Green declared.
Twinkleheels had been listening eagerly to all this.
"Now, I wonder what Farmer Green means by that," he muttered. "I hope he doesn't think I can't get through the drifts as well as anybody. I can certainly make my way through the snow better than those clumsy old oxen, Bright and Broad."
XIII
FUN AND GRUMBLES
It stopped snowing at last and the weather turned clear and crisp. The sun came out. And so did Johnnie Green, riding on Twinkleheels. He did not get far from the barn, however. Where the snow wasn't piled in drifts high above Twinkleheels' head it reached up on his fat sides. He floundered about the farmyard for a time. And, falling once, he dumped Johnnie Green neatly into a drift, head first.
The spill didn't hurt Johnnie in the least. But snow went up the inside of his sleeves, and down his neck, and into his eyes and ears and even his mouth.