“I am reasonable,” said the cow stupidly. “The pasture’s all dried up. I can give a lot more milk if I eat this corn.” She knew well enough she was wrong.
“Maybe you can,” said Nibble, “but it doesn’t happen to be your corn. You walk right out of it and leave it alone, like Louie told you to.”
“I won’t!” said the cow. “We won’t!” they all mooed together. “We won’t, and you can’t make us. You go right back to the woods where you belong and mind your own business. You eat what you want without taking orders from any one.”
“Yes, but I only take a nibble here and a nibble there. I don’t destroy things,” Nibble Rabbit argued. “You’re worse than a whole woods full of fieldmice.”
That did make the cows cross. They hate mice. Mice make their grain taste musty, so the poor cows can’t eat it. They felt insulted. And just that very minute Louie hit one blam! right on her ribs with a stone.
“Moo-o-o-o!” she roared. “We’ll show you whether you can boss us!” And she put down her horns and began charging around in the corn. But the night was so dark and the corn was so tall she couldn’t find the little boy in it. He just scuttled for the fence and shinned over.
Slam! She hit the fence right behind him. But he was running up the lane as fast as he could go before the foolish thing could find the hole where she got into the cornfield, so she could get out again to chase him. He was going for help. Even if his father was mean, Louie just had to tell him what was happening.
Nibble Rabbit squeezed under the fence, but he didn’t run. Not yet! He stopped to shout at those foolish cows: “You made a mistake that time! Nobody can chase a little boy, not even if it is a great big cow without sense enough in her whole carcass to fill one of the slits in her clumsy hoofs. We Woodsfolk won’t stand it.” He gave an angry stamp and then his furry feet started twinkling. He was going for help, too. He knew whom he wanted and where to find him!
It didn’t take Louie Thomson very long to run up to his house and tell his father how the cows were in the corn. It didn’t take his father very long to get a hammer and some staples and a lantern. Or to hurry down the lane so fast that Louie had to run to keep up with him. But Nibble Rabbit beat them.
Nibble bounced into Tommy Peele’s barnyard next door and woke up Watch, the big shaggy, smiley dog who was his special friend. “It’s no work of mine,” said Watch when Nibble explained what he wanted. “They ought to have a dog of their own. But if Louie’s friends with all the Woodsfolk I s’pose we can’t let his cows think they can chase him if they want to and we won’t stop them.” So he took a good shake to get his coat feeling comfortable and galloped off after Nibble, smiling to himself because he thought it would be fun. And it was--for him!