"But that boy! Surely, at your age, you can't enjoy belonging to anybody as young as he is!" the prying neighbor went on.
"Bless you!" cried the Muley Cow. "If he milks me, and takes me to the pasture and back, and gives me good things to eat, and brushes my coat for me, shouldn't you say that he belonged to me? It isn't every cow that has a boy like Johnnie Green to wait on her."
The meddlesome neighbor didn't quite know what answer to make. She was rather a stupid person, anyhow. Moreover, she was a great gossip. So she hurried off to tell all her friends that they were mistaken about Johnnie Green and the Muley Cow.
A good many of her friends admitted that there was something to be said on both sides of the question. And all of them agreed that the Muley Cow was certainly Johnnie Green's favorite.
V
THE FRIENDLY SCARECROW
Old Mr. Crow and all his cronies made fun of the scarecrow in the cornfield. They said that he was a great joke. "He doesn't know anything," they used to chuckle. "His head has nothing but straw inside it."
The Muley Cow had often heard the noisy crows laughing about the limp gentleman who hung on a long, upright stick beyond the pasture fence. She had paid little heed to him, herself, until one day she took a notion to jump the fence and taste the young shoots of corn. For they certainly did look tempting.