“Now, then,” said the Hoot Owl, “I guess that we are all ready. Sly Fox, you can carry the clubs.”
The Hoot Owl and Sly Fox made the Bogey Man use all of the queer kinds of sticks which they had brought. He had to shove the balls into holes all over the field, and then he had to spoon them out again with two or three kinds of clubs, and then shove them over to another hole. As fast as he got through with one club Sly Fox would take it away from him and give him another which was more twisted and curved than the one before.
“Isn’t he learning fast?” said the Hoot Owl to Sly Fox with a wink.
“O, fine,” answered Sly Fox. “Golf players are born and not made.”
Bogey Man is hit by the returning golf ball.
Although the Bogey Man was very tired, he tried to look happy, and said he never had so much fun in all his life. He stumbled into pits and nearly sprained his ankle. He knocked the balls into ponds and over big bumps in the meadows. Nearly every time he struck a ball it would go out of sight. Sly Fox tried to find it, but, somehow, he never could. Then the Bogey Man had to pay Sly Fox twenty-five cents for a new ball. Before the day was over Sly Fox had sold to the Bogey Man the same ball 999 times. The Bogey Man’s hands were all blistered, and his feet were wet, and his fine clothes were all over mud. He sat down on a log and began to cry.
“I’m tired of running after those balls,” he said, “and I have, boo-hoo boo-hoo—I have spent all my money buying new ones.”