It was enough to spoil school for all of them on so hot an afternoon as that, and they were hardly let loose at three o'clock before there was a small army, with Tinker Bradley at its head, marching straight away across the green.
On they went, over the bridge and up the hill, and they were all puffing and nearly out of breath when they reached the bars that let down into Mr. Bradley's pasture lot.
"Now, boys," said their leader, "if we come across the brindle cow, don't you say a word to her. She's got a calf, and she gets mad the easiest you ever saw."
Each one of them made up his mind to let the brindled cow alone; and all would have been well if it had not been for Soddy Corcoran's dog.
They came across the cow, indeed, and her calf was with her; but they made a great bend to the left, and would have been safe if the dog had made the bend when they did. They had hardly noticed that he was with them, he was so very small, until Tinker Bradley shouted, "Soddy! Soddy Corcoran! there goes your dog—right straight for the cow!"
"Ape! Ape! April! coom here wid ye. She'll be the death of ye, sure."
"April? Did you name him—"
"That isn't the whole of it. I've only had him six weeks. Wait till you hear him bark. Hark to that now!"
It was not a bark; it was a growl. The little, grisly, wiry, bow-legged mite of a quadruped was almost hidden by the tuft of grass he was sitting in; but a bush twenty feet high could not have hidden that growl, or the short, hoarse, gruff, threatening bark which followed it. It was no wonder the brindled cow stopped feeding, and began to look around her.
"Did your dog growl that growl?" asked Tinker Bradley.