And Johnnie knew exactly what he meant.
As for the Muley Cow, she went about her business as if no great change had come into her life. And if now and then she took a notion to look for better grass in the back pasture on the edge of the woods, she would jump the fence just as she always had and stray off among the clumps of trees and bushes.
When Johnnie went to drive the cows home at "cow-come-home time," as he used to call it when he was younger, he always looked first for the Muley Cow. And if he didn't see her he always knew what had happened.
"She's in the back pasture again!" Johnnie would exclaim—sometimes none too pleasantly. For the back pasture stretched way around a shoulder of the hill, and being half overgrown it offered a fine hiding place for the old cow. Sometimes it meant a good hour's search before Johnnie found her.
In days past Johnnie Green had been known to drive the herd home without noticing that the Muley Cow was missing. But now that she belonged to him such an oversight never happened. The Muley Cow soon noticed that Johnnie always came for her, no matter where she went.
"It won't hurt him to hunt for me now and then," she told herself. "A little work is good for a boy."
Somehow Johnnie Green did not feel just that way about work. He seemed to have an idea that work was a good thing for a boy to avoid. And if you couldn't escape it, then the wisest thing to do was to make play of it. By pretending hard enough, Johnnie had discovered that he could make a game of almost anything his father wanted him to do.
So it wasn't long before he was enjoying buffalo hunts in the back pasture. With old dog Spot along it was a lively game and most exciting.
The Muley Cow found it exciting too. The first time that Johnnie tried to lasso her with a length of his mother's clothesline she started for home on a lumbering gallop.