My new master was not a bad sort of man, but he had what I thought was
an unpleasant habit of making everybody work very hard. He used to
harness me to a little cart, and make me carry earth and apples and
wood and many other things. I began to grow lazy; I didn’t enjoy going
in harness, and I disliked market-days very much. It wasn’t that they
made me draw too heavy a load or that they beat me, but I had to go
without anything to eat from morning till three or four o’clock in the
afternoon. When the weather was hot I nearly died of thirst, and yet
I had to wait till everything was sold, and my master had got all his
money.
I wasn’t always good in those days. I wanted them to treat me kindly,
and as they didn’t, I began to think of revenge. You see that donkeys
are not always stupid, but you also see that I was growing bad.
On market-days in the summer the people at the farm always got up very
early to cut the vegetables and gather the eggs and churn the butter,
while I was still lying out in the meadow. I used to watch all this
going on, knowing that at eight o’clock they would come and fetch me to
be harnessed to the cart.
One day I determined to play them a trick.
In the meadow I had noticed a deep ditch filled with thistles and
blackberry bushes. “Now,” I said to myself, “I’ll hide in that ditch,
so that when they come to fetch me there’ll be no donkey anywhere to
be seen.” So, as soon as I saw the cart being filled and the people
bustling about, I ran off to the side of the field, and lay down very
softly in the ditch, so that I was quite hidden by the bushes.
In a little while I heard one of the farm boys call me, and then run
looking about for me everywhere, and at last go back to the farm. In a
few minutes I heard the farmer himself say, “He must have got through
the hedge. But where _could_ he have broken through? There doesn’t
seem to be a hole anywhere. Oh, I know! some one must have left the
gate open. Who was it? Here, boys, run out and look in the fields over
yonder! He can’t be far off. And make haste, for it’s getting late.”
So all the farm help turned out to look for me. It was broiling
weather, and after a while the poor people came back very hot, very
limp, and panting for breath. The farmer declared that I must have been
stolen, and that I was a great donkey to let any one steal me, and so
on. Then he harnessed one of the horses to the cart, and drove off late
to market, in a very bad temper.
[Illustration: “I GALLOPED TO THE OTHER END OF THE MEADOW.”]
When I saw that all was quiet again, and that nobody was looking, I
scrambled out of my ditch, and galloped off to the other end of the
meadow, so that they shouldn’t suspect where I’d been. Then I opened my
mouth, and began to _hee-haw! hee-haw!_ with all my might.
At this noise, all the people at the farm rushed out.
“Hello! why, there he is!” said the shepherd.
“Where has he been all this while?” said the mistress.
“How did he get in again?” said the carter.
I was so delighted not to go to market, that I went prancing up to
them. They were very glad to see me; they patted me, and said I was
a good, clever donkey to have managed to escape from the thieves who
had stolen me, till I felt quite ashamed of myself, for I knew that I
didn’t deserve all this, and that I did deserve the stick. Then they
left me to graze all day in the meadow, and I should have enjoyed
myself very much, if my conscience hadn’t given me such a bad time of
it.
The farmer was very much surprised to see me when he came home. The
next day he went all round the meadow, and carefully stopped up every
hole he could find in the hedge, until there wasn’t room for a cat to
get through.
The week passed quietly away until market-day came again, and then I
hid myself in the ditch as before. The people at the farm could not
make it out, and thought that the thieves who stole me were unusually
clever.
“This time,” said the farmer, “he must be really lost and gone for
good,” and he harnessed one of the horses and went off to market as
before. When everything was quiet I came out again, but this time I
thought I had better not say “_hee-haw!_” to let them know I was there.
When at last they found me, they didn’t stroke or pat me, and they said
so little that I thought they must suspect something. But I didn’t
care, and I said to myself,—
“Ah, yes, my good friends, you’ll think yourselves very clever if you
find me out, but I don’t intend you shall,” and so when market-day came
round, I made for my ditch for the third time.
But scarcely was I safely hidden among the thistles and blackberry
bushes, when I heard the big watch-dog bark, and then the voice of the
farmer say,—
“Here, Rover, Rover, good dog, then! go and look for him!” and in a
moment Rover had pounced upon my hiding-place, and was growling and
snapping at my heels in a most unpleasant manner. I made for the hedge,
and tried to force a way through, but in vain.
“Good dog, good Rover, good dog!” shouted the farmer, and he threw a
lasso at me, which caught me and stopped me short. Then he led me back
and tied me up, and I heard that one of the farmer’s little boys had
been watching the meadow from a place where I couldn’t see him, and
that he had told where I was.
[Illustration: “I DRANK UP A BOWL OF CREAM.” P. 28.]
After that I was much more severely treated. They shut me up, but I
learned how to draw bolts and lift up latches with my teeth, and so get
out. All day long you might have heard the people of the farm saying,
“_Oh!_ there’s that donkey _again_!” The farmer grumbled and beat me,
but I became worse and worse. I compared my wretched life now with the
happy one I had led in former days under the same master, and instead
of trying to leave off behaving badly, I became more and more naughty
and obstinate every day. One day I went into the kitchen garden and ate
up all the lettuce; another day I knocked down the little boy who had
told tales about me; another day I drank up a bowl of cream that had
been set outside the door ready for churning. I trod on the fowls, and
bit the pigs, till at last the mistress said she couldn’t stand it any
longer, and she begged her husband to sell me at the next fair.
So, when the fair-day came, my master took me away.
He sold me to a family where there was a little invalid girl whom I had
to take out; but I didn’t stay there long, for the little girl died,
and then her parents, who had never liked me, turned me adrift to go
where I pleased, and to live as best I could.
[Illustration: “THE BOYS SHOUTED.” P. 30.]