“Are they?” said she. “That shows how much you know. They’re breaking into the cornfield this minute. Hear the fence--now!”
Sure enough there was the whine and snap of a wire when a cow leans into it, and a floundering and swishing as she tore at the leaves. Even Louie could hear it; he put out his head to listen.
“Whe-e-e-e!” yelled the little he-owl in the tree. “It is a turtle! It is!”
But as he spoke Louie gave the blankets a jerk, trying to climb out, and the rude little owl who was perched on it came tumbling and sliding down to the ground before she could catch herself. Didn’t she squawk? And didn’t they flap off as fast as their wings would go? They were too scared even to turn their heads as they flew.
If they had they’d have seen Louie Thomson running, too. And his feet were going most as fast as their wings--over to the cornfield.
CHAPTER XI
GREAT DOINGS BY NIGHT IN THE WOODS AND FIELDS
My, but Louie was excited when he found the cows in his father’s corn. Of course it wasn’t his corn; his father told him so when he got angry with Louie for taking a little bit to feed Tad Coon. But Louie forgot all about that. Here were these bad old beasts biting and tearing and tramping it down after he’d had to hoe it so hard to start it growing.
“Get out of there!” he shouted. “Hi, boss! Move along!”
“Humph!” snorted the oldest cow. “It’s only that boy. We don’t have to pay any ’tention to him. It isn’t milking time.” And she snapped off another stalk.
“Get out of here, you cows!” said a new voice. “You don’t belong here, and you know it. Be reasonable now and go along.” Who do you think it was? It was Nibble Rabbit. He’d heard the noise, and he’d seen Louie run over to stop them, and he remembered the way the Red Cow took after Tommy Peele. He just knew it wasn’t safe for little boys to drive cows all alone when they didn’t want to be driven.