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 foot-steps.
“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?’”
“Does ‘whoa’ mean to stop?” asked the Saw-Horse, in a surprised voice, as it rolled its eyes upward to look at the boy.
“Of course it does,” answered Tip.
“And a hole in the ground means to stop, also, doesn’t it?” continued the horse.
“To be sure; unless you step over it,” said Tip.