She ran forward like an antelope, gave a sudden leap into the air, and went up, up, up,—over the haystacks, over the trees, over the clouds,—up among the stars.
But, alas! in her frantic desire to reach the moon she overshot the mark; jumped clear over it, and went down on the other side, nobody knows where, and she never was seen or heard of again.
And Mother Brindle, when she saw what had happened, ran straight home and gobbled up the warm mash before any of the other cows could get there, and ate so fast that she made herself ill.
"That is the whole story," said the squirrel, seriously; "and it seemed to me a very curious one, I confess."
"Very!" said Toto, dryly. "But there's nothing about the others in it,—the cat and fiddle, and the little dog, you know."
"Well, they weren't in it really, at all!" replied Cracker. "They were all lies, Mrs. Cow says, every one of them."
"Humph!" said Toto "Well, Mrs. Cow ought to be a good judge of lies, I should say."
"What can be expected," said the raccoon loftily, "from a creature who eats hay? Be good enough to hand me those nuts, Toto, will you? The story has positively made me hungry,—a thing that has not happened—"