But she hadn’t forgotten that carrot, because she was so terribly greedy. She galloped up and sclooped her tongue around beneath the pile of hay in Nibble’s cage. No, there weren’t any more carrots at all. So she rolled her eyes around and saw Nibble just finishing up the sweet inside of it. “Moo-oo-oo!” she roared. And it didn’t sound a bit like the White Cow’s fluty voice. Moo! She tried to catch Nibble on her sharp horns or trample him with her big hard toes. But he was too quick. He just made two jumps and ran under the haystack.
Then she shook her horns at Chirp Sparrow, who was perched on a fence post. “You lied!” she roared. “You said there were lots of carrots here!” But Chirp just squawked rudely and flew into a tree, and she only banged her sore nose on the fence wire.
So the next one she took after was Tommy Peele, who hadn’t done anything to her at all. And you remember Tommy had on his tall rubber boots, so he couldn’t run very fast. Not fast enough to run away from the Red Cow.
And suddenly Nibble found he was dreadfully afraid of what might happen to Tommy Peele. Besides, it was all his own fault—excepting that Chirp really oughtn’t to have lied to her. So he bounced out under her very nose, calling: “I took the carrot! I took the carrot!”
But the Red Cow wanted someone she could catch and hurt—because she had lost her temper. She wanted Tommy Peele. Only she never got him.
Because right then things did begin to happen. Watch dropped that rat and clamped his teeth right on her sore nose. “There!” he growled in his throat. “I’ll teach you to hurt my little boy!”
“I’ll hurt you!” bawled the Red Cow, trying to stamp in his ribs with her big horny feet.
“You will?” It was the White Cow’s voice—but it wasn’t fluty now. She was galloping, tail up and head down. “Whang!” she hit the Red Cow’s ribs. “Blam!” she hit her so hard in the shoulder that Watch lost his hold. And the Red Cow was all through hurting any one. She turned and ran, limping and licking her sore nose.
Maybe you think Nibble Rabbit wasn’t puzzled when he saw the Red Cow run bawling down the pasture with a limp that would keep her feeding in circles for a week. He had thought of course she was going to fight with Watch the Dog, and instead she had turned on Tommy Peele. Now that was wrong, so Watch had a perfect right to stop her. But, when the White Cow came charging up, Nibble never in the world expected to see her help Watch give the Bed Cow a terrible trouncing.
And here was Watch, all smiles and waggly tail, saying, “Much obliged, I’m sure, Mother Snowflake. I was finding that heifer quite a mouthful.”