"Well, just because you don"t happen to care for salt is no reason for your being so angry," s...o...b..ll told him.
And then Mr. Crow almost took his breath away.
"I agree with you," he said gruffly! And Mr. Crow was a person who was never known to agree with anybody! So that was an astonishing remark for him to make.
"Then I suppose you"ll get over being angry, at once," s...o...b..ll ventured.
"I won"t!" Mr. Crow thundered. "And take a bit of advice, young fellow: Don"t go near the salting party! It will be dangerous," he added darkly.
"Why will it be dangerous?" s...o...b..ll inquired.
The old gentleman shook his head and put on a very wise look.
"I don"t believe you"ve ever been at a salting party," he said.
And s...o...b..ll confessed that he hadn"t.
Whereat Mr. Crow nodded his head up and down several times and looked even wiser than before.
"It"s lucky for you, my lad, that you told me about this affair," he declared. "For I"m going to keep you out of a peck of trouble. Don"t you go near the party! Keep just as far away from it as you can! When you see Johnnie Green come inside the pasture you scramble over the stone wall and hide!" And now he shook his head.
"It"s a pity--" he sighed--"a pity you can"t fly, or climb a tree."
He was so gloomy that s...o...b..ll couldn"t help feeling uncomfortable. And all he could manage to say was one word which he had hard work to stammer out. It was "W-w-why?"
"Because it"s just a trick!" Mr. Crow explained. "It"s a trick to catch you. This trick of salting the sheep is as old as the hills. But I suppose you"re so young you never have happened to hear of it. I must say," he added, "I"m surprised that the Muley Cow didn"t take the trouble to tell you all about it."
"Maybe she"s too young to know about it, too," s...o...b..ll suggested.
"Young!" Mr. Crow cried with a short, mirthless laugh. "The Muley Cow"s not young. She"s the oldest cow on the farm. If the truth must be told, she"s so old that Farmer Green wouldn"t keep her if it weren"t that Johnnie Green thinks she belongs to him. And he"d raise a terrible row if his father sold her."
"Are you too young to explain about this trick that you just warned me against?" s...o...b..ll asked. "I"d like to know how there can be any danger in salt. How can anybody be caught with salt?"
"Well, you _are_ a silly!" cried Mr. Crow. "Can"t you guess that Johnnie Green is going to put salt on everybody"s tail?"
VII
WARNING THE FLOCK
s...o...b..ll Lamb was puzzled. He didn"t understand old Mr. Crow"s answer at all.
"What if Johnnie Green should put salt on my tail?" he asked Mr. Crow.
"What harm would that do?"
The old gentleman stared at s...o...b..ll as if he couldn"t quite believe that anybody could be so stupid.
"Haven"t you ever heard that that"s the way to catch people?" cried Mr.
Crow at last. "Why, there isn"t a boy in Pleasant Valley who doesn"t know that; and many of "em carry salt about in their pockets all the time, hoping to get a chance some day to put the salt on my tail, and capture me!" Mr. Crow"s bright eyes snapped. And his bill snapped, too.
For the mere thought of such scheming always made him terribly angry.
And then s...o...b..ll said something that made Mr. Crow more impatient than ever.
"I don"t care if Johnnie Green does catch me," s...o...b..ll declared.
"Johnnie wouldn"t hurt me. We"ve always been great friends."
"He wouldn"t, eh?" Mr. Crow retorted. "How do you know he wouldn"t hurt you?"
"He never _has_ hurt me," s...o...b..ll replied.
"Perhaps not! Perhaps not!" Mr. Crow croaked. "But you never can tell.
You never can tell what a boy will do. And if you go to the salting party and get into trouble, don"t say I didn"t warn you!" As the old fellow flew off he looked as if all the cares in the world were weighing him down. s...o...b..ll noticed that he flew heavily. It took a great amount of flapping of his broad wings to lift him out of the pasture. And when he was well up in the air he gave a glum _caw, caw_ as he wheeled and sailed away down the wind.
Well, s...o...b..ll couldn"t help being somewhat disturbed by Mr. Crow"s grave actions and his graver remarks. "I wonder," thought s...o...b..ll, "if Mr. Crow knows what he"s talking about. I"ll ask the flock!"
So s...o...b..ll ran down the hillside pasture to the place where the flock had gathered to graze. And to his astonishment some of the flock didn"t even lift their heads from the gra.s.s when he related all that Mr. Crow had said. Those that did pause and listen to s...o...b..ll only giggled and went to feeding again. No! there was one that spoke to him. Aunt Nancy Ewe spoke up a bit tartly.
"If you"re worried you"d better stay away when Johnnie Green comes to salt us," she told him. "_We_ all expect to have a very pleasant time,"
she added.
"Have you ever had salt put on your tail?" s...o...b..ll asked the old lady.
"Certainly not!" she snapped. And she glared at s...o...b..ll so fiercely that he fell back several steps. "Are you trying to insult me?" she cried.
He did not answer. It was plain to him that Aunt Nancy didn"t know anything about the trick of putting salt on one"s tail. Yes! Mr. Crow must be wiser than she was.
"They"ll all get into trouble," s...o...b..ll thought. And then he said something that was almost exactly like what Mr. Crow had said to him.
"They can"t say I didn"t warn them!"
VIII
SALTING THE SHEEP
s...o...b..ll Lamb stood in the pasture apart from the rest of the flock.
Aunt Nancy Ewe had returned to her grazing. And not one of her companions acted as if some dreadful peril hung over him. n.o.body would have thought, to look at the flock, that they were about to have salt put on their tails. But s...o...b..ll knew that it was so. Far down the valley he could hear old Mr. Crow"s warning _caw_, _caw_, telling him again to beware of Johnnie Green.
And just then Johnnie squirmed through the pasture bars and pulled a sack after him. Presently he began to call to the sheep. And s...o...b..ll watched while they went, one and all, on a dead run towards the bars.
Then s...o...b..ll turned and ran the other way, straight for the stone wall.
He didn"t even look back once, but scrambled over the wall and lost himself in the tangle of berry bushes that grew in a rocky old pasture that hadn"t been used for years.