"If you do, you're a wonder," remarked the boy; "but there's no harm in thinking you understand. I guess these ears are ready now. Will you hold the horse while I stick them on?"
"Certainly, if you'll help me up," said Jack.
So Tip raised him to his feet, and the Pumpkinhead went to the horse and held its head while the boy bored two holes in it with his knife-blade and inserted the ears.
"They make him look very handsome," said Jack, admiringly.
But those words, spoken close to the Saw-Horse, and being the first sounds he had ever heard, so startled the animal that he made a bound forward and tumbled Tip on one side and Jack on the other. Then he continued to rush forward as if frightened by the clatter of his own footsteps.
"Whoa!" shouted Tip, picking himself up; "whoa! you idiot—whoa!"
The Saw-Horse would probably have paid no attention to this, but just then it stepped a leg into a gopher-hole and stumbled head-over-heels to the ground, where it lay upon its back, frantically waving its four legs in the air.
Tip ran up to it.
"You're a nice sort of a horse, I must say!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you stop when I yelled 'whoa?'"