Well, Buddy and Brighteyes kept on, bounding over the stories and stopping now and then to eat some blackberries or huckleberries or raspberries or a few late, wild strawberries, and pretty soon they came to the back part of the field, where, resting in the shade of some trees, were all the cows.
Oh, I guess there was a dozen and a half of them--big, nice mooley cows, with brown eyes and long tongues, and they were all chewing their cuds like gum, you know, and wondering why the farmer didn"t come to drive them home to milk, for they hadn"t heard him calling them, you see.
"How are we ever going to drive them home?" asked Buddy of his sister.
"Let me think a minute," said Brighteyes, so she thought real hard for a minute, or, possibly a minute and a little longer, and then she exclaimed: "We must each take a long, leafy tree branch, and go up behind the rows, and wave the branches, and tickle the cows with the leaves, and they"ll think it"s a boy driving them home, and they"ll march right along, and the poor farmer, with his sore feet, won"t have to come after them."
And that"s exactly what Buddy and Brighteyes did. They got some branches, gnawing them off a tree with their sharp teeth, and with the leaves they tickled the cows until they almost made them sneeze.
The cows looked around, expecting to see some boys driving them, but Buddy and Brighteyes hid behind their big branches, and the cows were none the wiser. So they swallowed their cuds, blinked their eyes, switched their tails, and started up and down the hills, over the field, toward the barnyard to be milked.
Now, before the farmer-man had come very far from the fence, he met the cows, and maybe he wasn"t surprised to see them coming. But he was glad, too, let me tell you, for he didn"t have to walk any farther with his cut foot.
Then Brighteyes and Buddy ran and hid, for they did not want to be seen, and the man jumped upon the back of a gentle cow, and rode her all the way home, and told his wife how the whole herd, in some strange manner, had come all the way from the back of the field alone. You see he didn"t know Buddy and Brighteyes had driven them.
Well, in a few days the man"s foot was well, so he could drive the cows himself, and the farmer"s wife gave Dr. Bigg"s family lots of b.u.t.termilk; for, somehow, she guessed that the little guinea pig boy and girl had done the farmer a kindness, as their papa had told them to.
Now the following story will be about Buddy on horseback--that is, providing no cats get into our coalbin to scratch the furnace and make it go out.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
STORY XXV
BUDDY RIDES HORSEBACK.
One night Buddy Pigg"s mamma came into his room, where he was sleeping soundly and dreaming he was playing a ball game with Bully and Bawly, the frogs, and Mrs. Pigg gently shook her little boy by the shoulder.
"Wake up, Buddy!" she called. "Wake up!"
"What"s the matter, mother?" Buddy exclaimed, as he sat up in bed. "Is the house on fire?"
"No," she answered, "but your papa is very sick, and I want you to go for Dr. Possum." Then Buddy jumped up very quickly and began to dress, for he loved his papa very much, and would do anything in the world for him. When Buddy was ready to start he heard Dr. Pigg groaning very hard, and saying:
"Oh, dear, what a pain I have! Oh, dear! When will Dr. Possum come?"
"Buddy is going for him at once," Mrs. Pigg said. "He will soon be here.
But have you no medicine that you can take?" For Dr. Pigg had once worked in a hospital, and generally had some medicine in the house, but this time he had none that would stop his pain. So Buddy had to get ready to go for the doctor, while Mrs. Pigg and Brighteyes made mustard plasters for Dr. Pigg.
Well, when Buddy was all dressed, he happened to look out of the window, and he saw how dark it was, for there was no moon that night, and the stars were all hidden behind clouds. But do you s"pose Buddy was going to stay home on that account? No, sir-ee! He was frightened, and I guess you"d have been, too, but he was brave, and he made up his mind he"d go for Dr. Possum.
So Buddy put on his hat and coat and went out of the front door and into the dark night, where, for all he knew, a bad fox might be waiting to grab him. But Buddy took a long stick, and he filled his pockets with stones, and he made up his mind he would throw them at the fox if he saw him.
The little guinea pig boy went on, and on, through the woods, toward Dr.
Possum"s home, and, after a while, he was not so frightened as he had been at first. Then, all of a sudden, as he was pa.s.sing a big, black bush, he heard a funny noise. First he thought it was a wolf or a bear, and then he heard a voice say:
"Oh, come on down into the burrow, Waddy."
Then Buddy knew it was the two groundhog boys, Woody and Waddy, who had made the funny noises, but they didn"t mean to scare him, and he wasn"t at all frightened now. Woody and Waddy had heard Buddy coming along, and, a moment later, they saw him and asked where he was going.
"I"m going after Dr. Possum, because my papa is sick," said Buddy.
"Wait and we"ll let you take our lantern," said Woody, and he hurried down into the burrow, and came back with a large bottle, filled with lightning bugs, which gave plenty of light. And it had a string on, to carry it by. As Buddy took it, very thankfully, Waddy said he hoped he would find the doctor at home.
Then Buddy started off again, but he hadn"t gone much farther through the woods before he heard another noise. This noise was a real loud one, like some giant tramping up and down, and stamping his feet, and suddenly there came a great snort, and the earth seemed to shake, and a big, black thing jumped up in front of Buddy, scaring him frightfully.
He trembled so that the cork nearly came out of the bottle of lightning bugs, and, if it had, the fireflies would have been spilled all over the ground, worse than when you spill your ice cream cone--only it didn"t happen, I"m glad to say, but almost. Then the black shape stood still, and a great voice called out:
"Where are you going with that lantern?"
"If you please, kind sir," answered the little boy guinea pig, "I"m going for Dr. Possum for my papa, who has a terrible pain. The groundhog boys lent me this lantern. But who are you, if you please, kind sir?"
"Why, I am Gup, the horse," was the answer. "So you are going for Dr.
Possum, eh? He is a friend of mine. I"m sorry if I frightened you. Yes, I"m only Gup, the horse. You see, my name is Gup because there is a little boy at our house, and he can"t talk very plainly, and he calls me "Gup" when he wants to say "get up," you see. However, it doesn"t much matter, and I don"t mind.
"But, speaking of doctors, I know where Dr. Possum lives, and I"ll take you right to his house in less than no time. Besides, you and your sister were so kind as to drive the cows home for the man who cut his foot, and as he is a friend of mine I want to return your kindness to him. Jump upon my back, Buddy."
"Oh, I"m afraid I"ll fall," said Buddy, when he saw how high up Gup"s back was from the ground.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the horse. "I wouldn"t let you fall for the world. Here, hold up your firefly lantern so you can see, climb upon that low stump, and then you can jump on my back. I"ll stand still, and then I"ll take you right to Dr. Possum"s house."
So Buddy got up on Gup"s back. It was the first time he had ever ridden a horse or been up so high, and, of course, for a while, he was frightened. But Gup told him just how to cling tightly to his big neck and how to hold the lantern so the lightning bugs would shine on the path, and then Gup started off.
Oh, how fast he went! Right through the woods, he galloped, and he never b.u.mped into a tree or a bush even once. He went gently, too, so that Buddy would not fall off, and, my goodness sakes alive! in a short time the little guinea pig boy was at Dr. Possum"s house. He knocked on the door, rat-a-tat-tat, and, luckily, the doctor was at home. He got right out of bed, took his satchel of medicines and was just going to get into his automobile to go to Dr. Pigg"s house, when he found that his auto was broken. Either the spark was off the plug or the plug was off the spark, I forget which. Then Gup said:
"Get right up on my back, doctor. I can carry you and Buddy, too. It"s no great weight, I a.s.sure you. Never mind the automobile. They are always making trouble."
So Dr. Possum, with his medicine box, climbed upon Gup"s back, behind Buddy, and he helped hold the little guinea pig on during the ride home.
Faster and faster went Gup through the dark woods his hoofs going "tat-a-tat-too," and he didn"t b.u.mp into a tree or a bush, and he did not jar off Buddy or Dr. Possum, and pretty soon there they were safe at Dr. Pigg"s house, and Dr. Possum gave Buddy"s papa some medicine that soon made him better. Then Gup, the kind horsie, took Dr. Possum safely back through the dark woods as straight as a string.
In the morning Dr. Pigg was all well again, and he said Buddy was very brave to go off for a doctor in the night, and I think so, too.
Now, in case it doesn"t thunder too hard and scare the chimney so that it falls off the roof, I"ll tell you next about Buddy and Brighteyes tumbling down hill.
STORY XXVI
BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES FALL DOWN HILL
Not far from where Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg lived in the pen with their papa and mamma, there was a big, tall hill. Oh, ever so much taller than a house, but not quite so high as the church steeple, and it was a very hard hill to climb, but, once you had gotten to the top, you could see off, ever so far; farther than from here to the end of the rainbow, which is very far indeed.
Now, though Buddy and Brighteyes, the two little guinea pig children, had lived near the hill ever since they were mere babies, they had never climbed to the top of it. There were two reasons for this. One was because the hill was so high and the other was because it was so steep.