The first time Twinkleheels saw them travelling at that gait he couldn't help giggling.

"They look as if their legs were going to knock down all the fence posts on the farm," he exclaimed.

Despite their clumsiness, Bright and Broad did many a day's hard work in an honest fashion for Farmer Green. Of course he never drove them to the village when he was in a hurry. But whenever there was a heavy load to pull he depended on Bright and Broad to help him. If the pair of bays couldn't haul a wagon out of a mud hole Farmer Green would call on Bright and Broad. And when they lunged forward the wagon just had to move--or something broke.

Though Twinkleheels admired their strength, he didn't care much for Bright and Broad's company. They were too sober to suit him. They were more than likely to stand and chew their cuds and look out upon the world with vacant stares and say nothing.

"I used to think Ebenezer was a slow old horse," Twinkleheels remarked to the bays on a winter's day as they stood in the barn. "I thought I could beat him easily until he showed me that I was mistaken. But I can certainly beat Bright and Broad. They're the slowest pair I ever saw."

The bays glanced at each other.

"You can't always tell by a person's looks what he can do," one of them remarked. "Let Bright and Broad choose the race course and they'd leave you behind."

"Nonsense!" Twinkleheels cried. "They couldn't beat anybody unless it's Timothy Turtle, who lives over in Black Creek."

The bays winked at each other over the low part.i.tion that separated their stalls.

"Maybe you'll find out that you're wrong," they told Twinkleheels.

"Maybe you'll learn that Bright and Broad are faster than you think they are. We've known Farmer Green to take them and leave us here in the barn--when he was in a hurry to go somewhere, too."

"Ha! ha!" Twinkleheels laughed. "You're joking. You're trying to fool me."

"Oh, no!" the bays cried. "Ask Bright and Broad themselves."

So Twinkleheels spoke to Bright and Broad the very next day, when he met them in the barnyard. While he told them what the bays had said to him they chewed their cuds and listened with a dreamy look in their great, mild eyes.

Twinkleheels paused and waited for them to speak. But they said nothing.

Their jaws moved steadily as they chewed; but they said never a word.

"Can't you answer when you're spoken to?" Twinkleheels cried at last.

"Yes!" they said, speaking as one--for they always did everything together. "Yes! But you haven't asked us a question."

"Is this true--what the bays told me about you?" he snapped.

"We can't deny it," they chanted.

Twinkleheels was never more surprised.

XII

NO SCHOOL TO-DAY

And that night it snowed. In the morning, when Johnnie Green crawled from his bed and looked out of the window he could scarcely see the barn. A driving white veil flickered across the farmyard. The wind howled. The blinds rattled. Even the whole house shook now and then as a mighty blast rocked it.

It was just the sort of weather to suit Johnnie Green.

"There won't be any school to-day!" he cried. And he hurried into his clothes much faster than he usually did.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Twinkleheels Talks to the Oxen. (Page 64)]

Though Johnnie Green was eager to get out of doors, most of those that lived in the barn were quite content to stay there during such a storm.

The old horse Ebenezer especially looked pleased.

"This will be a fine day to doze," he remarked to the pony, Twinkleheels. "Farmer Green won't make me do any work in this weather.

The roads must be blocked with drifts already."

Twinkleheels moved restlessly in his stall.

"I don't want to stand here with nothing to do," he grumbled. "If I could sleep in the daytime, as you do, perhaps I wouldn't mind. And if I were like the Muley Cow maybe I could pa.s.s the hours away by chewing a cud. Bright and Broad can do that, too," said Twinkleheels.

"Oh! Farmer Green will have the oxen out as soon as the storm slackens,"

old Ebenezer told him. "And no doubt you'll get outside as soon as they do, for Johnnie Green will want you to play with him in the snow or I don't know anything about boys."

"Good!" Twinkleheels exclaimed. "I hope he'll take me out. It would be great fun to toss him into a snowdrift.... But I don't see what Farmer Green wants of Bright and Broad on a day like this. They'll be slower than ever if the roads are choked with snow."

The old horse Ebenezer smiled to himself as he shut his eyes for another cat nap before breakfast. He thought that Twinkleheels would learn a thing or two, a little later.

Johnnie Green was the first one to plough his way out to the barn that morning. He burst into the barn and stamped the snow off his feet. And Twinkleheels stamped, too, because he wanted something to eat.

Johnnie fed Twinkleheels and Ebenezer and the bays. He was shaking some hay; in front of the Muley Cow (who belonged to him) when his father arrived.

"The worst storm of the winter!" Farmer Green observed. "We'll have work enough after this, breaking the roads out."

"I'll help," Johnnie said. "I'll take Twinkleheels and work hard."

"I suppose," said his father, "we ought to get the road to the schoolhouse cleared first."

"Oh, no!" cried Johnnie. "Let's leave that till the last."

"If we left it for you and Twinkleheels to clear, you wouldn't get back to school before spring," Farmer Green declared.

Twinkleheels had been listening eagerly to all this.

"Now, I wonder what Farmer Green means by that," he muttered. "I hope he doesn't think I can't get through the drifts as well as anybody. I can certainly make my way through the snow better than those clumsy old oxen, Bright and Broad."

XIII

FUN AND GRUMBLES