For a moment you would have thought Red was going to get caught in a tight place. Johnnie Green was almost upon him. s...o...b..ll was almost upon him.

And then Red jumped.

XIX

THE WRONG TARGET

"Give me another push like that one!" Johnnie Green shouted from the swing.

Little did he dream that s...o...b..ll was rushing towards him from behind, rushing with head lowered in his best b.u.t.ting style.

Of course when the boy Red slipped out of the way there was only one thing that could happen. A moment after Johnnie shouted, s...o...b..ll struck the swing seat.

Crash! Bang! Split! A terrible cry from Johnnie Green! And a second or two later a dull thud!

The crash, bang and split came when s...o...b..ll's head met the swing seat.

The thud followed when Johnnie hit the ground.

Then all was quiet, except for a low moaning from the spot where Johnnie Green lay.

Red had climbed spryly into a wagon which stood near-by. But he soon saw that he needn't have gone to that trouble. For s...o...b..ll plainly had no more b.u.t.ts left in him for the time being. He stood still in a dazed fashion and stared dully about him. The heavy oaken swing seat had been no soft mark to hit, sailing swiftly through the air with eighty pounds of boy upon it.

Red had given one great shout. But now he too was very quiet. He jumped out of the wagon and ran to Johnnie Green, and lifted Johnnie's head.

"Are you hurt, Johnnie?" he asked.

But it was almost a minute before Johnnie Green could speak. It was almost as long as that before he could even breathe. He lay there gasping, with his hands clutched across his stomach. His eyes rolled about in the queerest way. If Red hadn't been frightened he would have laughed in Johnnie's face.

At last Johnnie Green spoke.

"Wh-wh-what happened?" he asked in a halting whisper. "Did the ropes break?"

"No!" Red answered. "The ropes held--though it's a wonder."

"Can't you tell me what happened?" Johnnie begged him. "If it wasn't the ropes, what was it?"

"It was s...o...b..ll," said Red. "He b.u.t.ted you."

"I don't believe it," cried Johnnie. "He never b.u.t.ted me in his whole life."

Johnnie Green was sitting up now. And since he didn't seem to be much hurt the boy Red couldn't help grinning.

"Look at that swing seat!" he exclaimed, pointing to the splintered bit of oak board near Johnnie. "You don't think--do you?--that I split that thing with _my_ head?"

And then Johnnie Green just had to believe him. And Johnnie began to get angry, too.

"You must have seen s...o...b..ll coming," he growled. "Why didn't you warn me?"

Red swallowed a few times as he tried to think of a good answer.

"Well," he replied finally, "I didn't _know_ he was going to b.u.t.t you, did I? Didn't you just say yourself that he never _had_ b.u.t.ted you?"

To all this Johnnie Green made no answer.

"If you ask me," Red went on more easily, "I should say you were lucky.

You were lucky to have that swing seat under you."

Johnnie Green rose slowly to his feet.

"There's something queer about this," he declared.

"That's so," Red agreed. "There is. You'd just asked for another hard push. . . . And you got one--a harder one than I could have given you. . . . So I don't see what you're complaining about."

And then he pretended that he didn't understand why Johnnie Green tried to hit him.

XX

THE SWIMMING HOLE

After the affair at the swing it was as much as a week before Johnnie Green saw anything of his neighbor Red.

It was almost a week before s...o...b..ll felt like b.u.t.ting anybody. Even when other sheep bullied him s...o...b..ll edged away from them; and once he would have run into them head first.

Somehow he couldn't forget that frightful jolt he had received when he knocked Johnnie Green out of the swing.

At last, however, he tried a gentle b.u.t.t one day against the soft side of one of his mates. And finding only pleasure, and no pain, in the trick he became once more one of the most active b.u.t.ters in Farmer Green's whole flock.

Now, Johnnie Green had noticed that for a few days s...o...b..ll was unusually well behaved. And s...o...b..ll's gentleness did not please him.

For Johnnie had hoped that sometime s...o...b..ll would b.u.t.t the neighbor's boy Red.

So Johnnie Green began to whistle a merry tune a little later, when he chanced to see s...o...b..ll charging the hired man as he crossed the pasture.

Not long after that Johnnie Green went swimming. He found other boys at the swimming hole, which they had made by damming Broad Brook where it cut across the end of the meadow. Among the swimmers was the boy Red. It was the first time Johnnie had seen him since that day when s...o...b..ll b.u.t.ted Johnnie.

When Johnnie spied Red in the water he thought for a moment or two that he would find Red's clothes on the bank and tie knots in them. That was a favorite trick of Red's--tying hard knots in other boys' clothes.

Sometimes he even wet the knots, to make them harder to untie.

But Johnnie Green decided that he wouldn't knot Red's clothes. Besides, Red seemed to be keeping a watchful eye on them.

Johnnie slipped out of his own clothes quickly and soon he had dived off a flat rock and joined the boys in the swimming hole.