“SAVE ME QUICKLY, OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE!” GOBBLED THE TURKEY.
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CHAPTER XV
BUTTING MATCHES
SHEP, the Watson dog, noticed that all the animals seemed greatly excited. They wandered around the farmyard, lay down for a few minutes and then got up to begin their restless wandering again.
“Something is up, and I bet it is some devilment of Billy Whiskers. I’ll just keep my eye on the villain without his knowing it and discover what it is that is going on,” thought Shep.
Now the night pasture where the cows were allowed to wander after they had been milked in the evening was directly the other side of the barn. The gate between was left standing open so the cattle could pass from barnyard to pasture and back again at their pleasure. This pasture led down a steep hill to the stream and a nice grassy meadow, and as the banks of the stream were sandy, the cattle liked to go there to roll in the sand and dry their coats after a bath in the pools of the stream.
It was bright moonlight—one of those nights when the moon rose early. For which Shep was thankful, as it made it easy to watch the cattle. Just as he surmised, the minute the moon appeared over the top of the high hill in front of the house and shed its light over the barnyard and pasture, Billy Whiskers, Billy Junior, Nannie and Daisy slipped off the watch tower, as they called the high straw stack on which they slept, and from which vantage point they could see all that went on. They made straight for the pasture. Shep kept an eye on Billy, saw him lead his family through the gate into the pasture, and was a little amazed to find all the cattle followed them in groups of two and three.
“Now what in the world are they up to? I’ll go up on the straw stack they just left and see where they go. Not one of them is stopping to take so much as a mouthful of clover, and that is really fine clover in their field, and generally they love to munch it when the dew is on it as now. So there must be something very exciting ahead of them. Now they are going down the hill toward the stream. What is that line of black I see coming from the Smith farm? I declare it is his cattle, even to the big hogs! There comes another line of cattle from the direction of the Jones farm. It must be a big party they are having.”
When all the animals arrived at the edge of the stream where stretched the wide beach of sand, Shep could see they were forming a great circle.