"I drank up a Bowl of Cream."
After that I was much more severely treated. They shut me up, but I learned how to draw bolts and lift up latches with my teeth, and so get out. All day long you might have heard the people of the farm saying, “Oh! there’s that donkey again!” The farmer grumbled and beat me, but I became worse and worse. I compared my wretched life now with the happy one I had led in former days under the same master, and instead of trying to leave off behaving badly, I became more and more naughty and obstinate every day. One day I went into the kitchen garden and ate up all the lettuce; another day I knocked down the little boy who had told tales about me; another day I drank up a bowl of cream that had been set outside the door ready for churning. I trod on the fowls, and bit the pigs, till at last the mistress said she couldn’t stand it any longer, and she begged her husband to sell me at the next fair.
So, when the fair-day came, my master took me away.
He sold me to a family where there was a little invalid girl whom I had to take out; but I didn’t stay there long, for the little girl died, and then her parents, who had never liked me, turned me adrift to go where I pleased, and to live as best I could.
"The Boys Shouted.” P. [30.]"