WILD EXCITEMENT IN THE BARNYARD
The spotted cat led Button under the floor of the barn until he came
to a round hole in the floor that led to the main barn where the grain
bins were. Through this hole they squeezed themselves and from there
crossed the barn floor to a ladder that led up into the haymow.
Once in the hayloft they hurried over to the door that was directly
under the window where the pigeons went in and out to their nests, but
there on the hay, wriggling and crying, were the baby squabs who opened
their mouths so wide they nearly fell over backwards when they heard
the spotted cat and Button approaching. They thought every sound was
their mothers coming to feed them.
“Now help yourself, Mr. Button. Pick out the plumpest, and fall to. But
before we begin we better drag to the door a couple of squabs and drop
them down to your friend.”
Though their intentions were good, only trouble came from it, for
just as the squabs fell from the open door, the farmer happened to
be passing and they hit him on the head. This surprised him greatly
and he immediately came running up into the hayloft to see what had
happened to his squabs.
And there he found that a whole row of boxes which held the nests had
fallen down from the upper window into the hay and spilled out nearly
all of his nice fat squabs that were to be one of the delicacies at the
wedding feast. This was bad enough, but it infuriated him to find a big
stray cat and his own cat eating them up as fast as they could and he
grabbed up a pitchfork that was sticking up in the hay and ran toward
them.
Button saw by the angry gleam in his eye that he would as soon run the
pitchfork into them as not, so he ran for the door, preferring to take
the risk of having his neck broken by the fall to being run through
with the pitchfork.
The loft was high--at least fifteen or eighteen feet from the
ground--but Button took the leap without a moment’s hesitation, not
even casting his eyes down to see where he was going to land, for he
had felt the prongs of the fork prick his tail as he left.
Imagine his surprise on landing to find himself sitting on the broad
back of a big Durham bull! Also imagine the surprise of the bull at
having a pincushion land on his back filled with pins that stuck into
him when he was doing nothing but standing quietly in the yard!
Button had scarcely touched his back when the bull bounded forward.
Of course this made Button stick his claws deeper into the hide of the
bull to keep from falling off, and of course this hurt the bull and
made him try to shake off whatever was on his back. He started around
the yard on a run, jumping up and down and shaking himself, but no
matter what he did the sharp prickling thing on his back stuck on.
Just then he spied a little dog coming around the corner of the barn.
He hated dogs at any time and now being hurt and cross and looking for
some person or animal to vent his spite on, he started for the dog who
was no other than Stubby.
Seeing Button on the bull’s back and the bull running around like mad,
Stubby barked and ran up to the bull to try to drive him into a corner
of the barnyard and keep him there just long enough for Button to
loosen his claws which had become embedded in the bull’s hide by this
time, and give him a chance to jump off.
But Stubby missed his calculations. He thought the bull was too fat to
run fast, so he ran straight toward him, barking as he went. But alas!
with a lunge forward the bull’s horns slipped under Stubby and tossed
him up in the air so high that he thought he must surely be going on
up over the moon. Then all of a sudden he started to come down and
from the speed he knew when he hit the ground that the breath would be
knocked out of him so hard that it would kill him. Just when he had
made up his mind that he had to die, he hit something soft and opening
his eyes to see what it was, he found he had fallen in the middle of a
load of hay.
Now when the bull saw Stubby up in the hay, he tried to get to him and
went bellowing round and round the hay wagon, butting his head into
the hay and trying to scratch Button off by rubbing his sides against
the load. But the first time he did this, with a mighty pull Button
loosened his claws and with a spring he found himself safely on top of
the load beside Stubby.
[Illustration]
Just at this critical moment Billy and Nannie came trotting into the
barnyard and the bull ran straight for them with head lowered ready to
toss them over the barn. But this time he had met something that could
hook and butt quite as hard and much faster than himself. And when he
got to the place where he had seen two goats standing, he found no
goats in front of him, but one on either side of him sticking their
long horns into him. With a bellow of rage he ran forward and Billy
and Nannie chased him until they came to a little shed whose door was
open. Into this they dodged and let the bull go raving and bellowing to
his heart’s content.
And while they describe their sensations to each other, I will tell
you what became of Spot, for that was the name of the black and white
spotted cat. When her master went after Button with the pitchfork, she
ran up the side of the barn and hid on one of the rafters away up high
where her master could not possibly reach her. And there she stayed
until her master left the loft. When he did so there was murder in his
eye, for he had taken one look out the loft door just in time to see
Button riding on the back of his pet Durham bull, and it was at that
moment the bull tossed Stubby up on the load of hay.
“I have them now!” he cried. “I’ll run into the house and get my gun
and shoot both of them. I won’t have any stray dog and cat coming round
here and eating up my squabs and sticking their claws into my prize
bull’s back!”
The minute Spot’s master left the barn, she climbed down from the
rafters and going to the door meowed to Button and Stubby who were
still on the load of hay only a short distance from the door. She told
them to jump off the load and hide somewhere as her master had gone
to the house for his gun and he intended to shoot them on sight. “But
don’t go away. Hide until dark and then come back and we will feast on
what is left from the wedding supper.”
“All right,” they meowed and barked, and jumping from the opposite
side of the load of hay from which the bull was still pawing the
earth and bellowing with rage, they ran to an empty corn crib at the
further side of the barnyard. They crawled up through a hole in the
floor of the crib and found a place of shelter as no one would ever
think of looking for them there. Besides being safe, it was situated
in a very advantageous place, for from its latticed sides they could
see the farmhouse between the end of the barn they had just left and
the cluster of sheds and outhouses. Now they could see everything that
went on, both in the barnyard and at the house. They could see the
bridegroom, the minister, and all the guests arrive, to say nothing of
the bridal procession they could watch as it left the house on its way
to the church whose tall, sharp steeple they could see piercing the
clear, blue sky.
“Here Spot’s master comes now, running around the barn with his shotgun
in his hand and the Saint Bernard pup at his heels.”
Just as the farmer came around the corner and was looking wildly in all
directions for the cat and dog that had eaten his squabs and hurt his
bull, the bull spied him and being of a cross, disagreeable nature, he
wished to vent his anger on someone. Here was a good chance, a man and
a dog. He cared not that the man was his master and that the dog had
never even so much as barked at him. They were something to hurt and he
wished to make someone smart and burn as did the scratches that Button
had inflicted on his back.
Consequently Farmer Stevenson was more than surprised when his own bull
came toward him at full speed, bellowing as he came. And he had just
enough time to turn and run for his life before the bull was upon him.
Then the chase began. Mr. Stevenson headed for the house with the bull
close at his heels. He would have caught him had the bull not spied
the dog and ducked his head to toss the poor puppy up in the air to
land on the shed roof. Then the bull continued the chase and he caught
Mr. Stevenson’s coat tails which were flying out behind him in his mad
flight and ripped the coat straight up the back from hem to shoulder.
His long sharp horns did not touch Mr. Stevenson and luckily he escaped
through an open gate into the yard of the farmhouse and slammed it in
the bull’s face.
As it shut it hit the bull in the nose which hurt him considerably and
made him madder than ever. Now he began to kick and paw the gate down.
It held for awhile, but when he threw his big broad sides against the
fence, it gave way and a whole section fell into the yard. The bull
walked over it, bellowing and shaking his head as he made straight for
the kitchen door, through which he had seen Mr. Stevenson disappear.
Now _here_ was a pretty how-de-do--a wedding in preparation in the
house with the guests about to come and a mad bull running wild on the
premises. The maids preparing the wedding supper were scared nearly out
of their lives and went fluttering and squealing around the kitchen
like a flock of chickens. The mother of the bride and the bridesmaids
looked out the upper story window in alarm while the bride fainted for
fear the groom would arrive on the scene and the bull would kill him.
Of course Mr. Stevenson would shoot him at any minute but he did not
want to kill his prize full-blooded, pedigreed Durham bull and sell the
carcass for beef, as this would make him lose three thousand dollars,
the amount at which the bull was valued. He was hoping the bull would
quiet down and go back into the pasture if he saw no one to infuriate
him. But how was he to get out of the house and warn the guests, who
would soon be coming? He could go out the opposite side of the house,
but what good would that do, for he must shut the bull out of the
barnyard and he could not do that without being seen.
“Milly,” he said to one of the maids, “peek out of the window and see
what he is doing now.”
Milly looked out and saw the bull standing but a few feet from the
window pawing the earth and throwing it over his shoulder in his mad
rage, bellowing all the time so loudly you could have heard him a mile
away.
“Oh, it is terrible the way he is pawing and hooking all the geraniums
out of the bed!”
“I know why he is doing that,” spoke up another of the maids. “It is
because they are red and they say a bull hates red. He thinks someone
is waving a red flag at him. Look! Look! There go two plants he has
uprooted flying up in the air! Let us beat on a tin pan and see if we
can’t attract his attention before he uproots the whole bed.”
So they brought a tin pan and opening one of the windows began to
pound on it. The bull heard, paused, listened, looked, and seeing two
or three faces at the window stopped pawing and with a mighty roar he
rushed for the window. It was too high and small for him to go through
as it came half way up to his shoulder, but he raised himself on his
hind legs and tried to get his head in just the same.
Mr. Stevenson had shut the window when he saw him coming. This made no
difference to Mr. Bull; he just ran his sharp horns along the outside
of the window and every pane was shattered and fell over his head.
Just at this crucial moment Mrs. Stevenson called from upstairs that
she could see two or three buggies coming down the road with wedding
guests in them. They must be stopped for in his present state of mind
the bull would gore the horses and perhaps kill some of the people.
“It is the minister in one buggy and the groom in another,” called
out one of the bridesmaids who was keeping watch at one of the upper
windows. “What shall we do? What shall we do?” she wailed.
“One of you girls,” said Mr. Stevenson, “keep banging on the pans to
attract his attention while I sneak out of the house and go warn them.”
He ran down the front yard trying to get to the road to stop the guests
before they turned into the lane. Then the bull, on hearing the horses
coming, stopped trying to get in the window and turned his head in the
direction the sound came from. He rolled his upper lip over the end of
his nose as bulls do sometimes when intent on smelling something that
is far away, and immediately he detected the odor of perspiring horses.
Now here was something nice and big to vent his spleen on. He stopped
pawing the ground and butting the window, and was about to turn and
run out after them when to his dismay who should he see coming toward
him but those two horrid goats that had butted him and stuck their
long horns into him in the barnyard. He did not wait for them to come
nearer, but hustled his fat self round the corner of the house and ran
down the yard toward the road as fast as his great bulk would let him.
He arrived at the foot of the yard just as the first buggy reached the
lane. On seeing the horse, the bull threw his whole weight against the
rail fence and it fell over like a pack of cards and over it he went
after the horse.
[Illustration]
The horse hitched to this buggy was afraid of bulls, so he reared,
plunged and then bolted down the road on a dead run with his driver
pulling on the reins as hard as he could. The young lady with him
hung on to the side of the buggy to keep from being thrown out, while
her hat flew off and lit on one of the bull’s horns. This he soon
demolished by lowering his head and throwing the hat in the mud and
stamping on it.
This horse having escaped, the bull ran down the road to meet the other
buggies he saw coming. The next horse, driven by the minister, turned
straight around in the woods, upsetting it and throwing the minister
over a rail fence, where he landed in a squashy turnip bed, leaving the
tails of his long coat as he went over the fence.
The third horse became frightened also and in trying to turn around he
ran his buggy into the overturned one, locking the wheels and breaking
himself loose, as well as throwing out the groom, for it was none other
than the groom himself in this buggy. Then with a snort of fear he ran
down the road with the bull close to his heels.
When he recovered from his dazed feeling, the groom found himself in
the muddy road under the two overturned buggies. He tried to extricate
himself and get out from under the wreckage, while his bride, who had
seen all this from her window, fainted again when she saw his buggy
upset. But presently the man whose horse had bolted down the road
succeeded in getting him under control. He came back, and with his
help and that of Mr. Stevenson and the minister, they soon were able
to rescue the groom from the wrecked buggies. And just as soon as this
was done they shut the gate and reinforced it with logs so that should
the bull come back, he could not break the gate down and come into the
farmyard after them again.
[Illustration: “MY MOTHER STRETCHED OUT HER TRUNK AND THREW THE HUNTER
OVER HER HEAD.” (PAGE 140)]
Nothing else happened and very soon the bride and groom were locked in
each other’s arms, rejoicing over the narrow escape of the groom. The
minister was given a coat in place of the one with the tails torn off
and everyone else calmed down and the wedding preparations went on as
smoothly as if no bull had ever been around.
“Well, I never saw such a mix-up as that before, did you, Stub?” said
Button.
“No, I never did,” replied Stubby. “Hear that Saint Bernard pup howl!
He has been up on the shed roof ever since the bull tossed him there
and he is afraid to jump down. I’ll bark to him to go to the other side
and jump on a heap of straw I see piled up against it.”
“You better not. Someone will hear you and find out our hiding-place.”
“Oh, no, they won’t hear me! They are all too much excited over their
narrow escapes from being gored to death to hear me. Besides I won’t
bark loud.”
This he did and soon the Saint Bernard puppy had joined them in their
hiding-place and he was telling them all about the runaway horses and
wrecked buggies that he had seen from his high place on the shed roof.