“‘I won’t stay here at all unless you take that out of there,’ she said. ‘It’s too inconvenient.’
“So of course he just had to. And when it comes right down to ‘having to’ a man can do almost anything. But he had a terrible time. He heaved and clawed and shoved and rolled until his fingers and arms were sore. Then he picked up a stick, because it was easier to handle—and he learned how to pry that stone out of the passage.
“In walked his wife and began to settle their new home. Out walked the cows, and over they went to the plain to pick their own grass, but they left their calves hidden on the island. So, after they had finished feeding, back they came.
“Then the man took his stick and pried the rock into the passage again for fear the wolves would come back. And his wife stared at the cows and the cows stared at his wife, but still they didn’t make any compact.”
Nibble Rabbit and the Red Cow were both fairly stamping their feet with impatience because the White Cow wouldn’t hurry right along with her story. But she brought a big wad of cud all the way up her long neck and stood there chewing it while she thought things over. Finally she swallowed it and went on.
“I told you the man learned to use the great stone for a gate to the narrow passageway where the cows squeezed through. But I didn’t tell you how angry the wolves were about that.
“They were simply raging. Night after night they gnashed their jaws and howled around those rocks, but their claws wouldn’t climb them. And the man’s dog would sit up on top and shout insults at them. And the two cows would snuggle together in the brush with their calves between them and say, ‘Those wolves would have eaten us long ago if the man hadn’t been here.’
“They got very used to the man and his family. They didn’t walk ’way round his fire any more, or make eyes at his wife, and the calves got very friendly with his baby. But his wife used to look hard at them. ‘It’s all very well to take care of the cow who saved your life,’ she’d say to the man, ‘but how about that other one?’
“‘Well, what about her?’ he’d answer. ‘She isn’t any trouble.’
“‘She ought to pay for being taken care of,’ insisted his wife. ‘It’s all very well for this year, but next year these calves will be grown up and there will be new ones and we’ll be all cluttered up with cattle.’