ONE WAY TO STOP A HORSE
EVERY one of Daddy Longlegs' eight knees began to shake, when Sandy Chipmunk told him to stand in the middle of the road, in order to stop the old horse Ebenezer, who was pulling the wagon in which Johnnie Green and his grandmother were riding.
"I can't do that!" Daddy shrieked, shrinking away from the dusty road. "I'm so small that they wouldn't see me and the first thing I'd know I'd be run over.... You'll have to stop the wagon for me--you're so much bigger than I am."
But Sandy Chipmunk said he didn't like to speak to Johnnie Green, on account of a little trouble he had had with Johnnie's father over a letter.
"Can't you wave your tail at him?" Daddy Longlegs besought him. "That wouldn't be speaking to him, you know. Wave your tail at Johnnie Green until he stops the horse; and then you can run away, if you want to. And while the horse is standing still I'll scramble into the wagon, without anybody seeing me."
Now, Sandy Chipmunk was a good-natured person. And he saw that unless the wagon was stopped, Daddy Longlegs was going to be terribly disappointed. So he told Daddy that he would do what he could to help him.
Then Sandy leaped nimbly to the edge of the watering-trough at one side of the road and began waving his tail backwards and forwards, like a flag.
"That's right!" Daddy Longlegs shouted approvingly. "But I wish you'd wave a little harder. I'm afraid they won't see you."
So Sandy Chipmunk redoubled his efforts. And he wagged his tail so hard that before he knew what was happening he had lost his footing, slipped off the edge of the trough, and found himself floundering in the water.
Daddy Longlegs was watching the wagon so anxiously that he never noticed what was happening to his friend. But he observed that Johnnie Green began to laugh. And pointing toward the watering-trough Johnnie cried, "Oh! look, Grandma--look!"
The old horse Ebenezer, too, seemed interested in what was going on. Anyhow, he swerved to the right and walked straight up to the trough. And the wagon came to a halt.
That was Daddy Longlegs' chance. He hurried to one of the rear wheels. And in spite of the wind he clambered quickly up and hid himself in a corner of the wagon-box.
Meanwhile Sandy Chipmunk, spluttering and choking, managed to pull himself out of his unexpected bath and frisked out of sight among the sumacs that fringed the road.
"Well, I stopped the wagon, anyhow!" he said to himself as he scampered away.
And that was just where he was mistaken. The old horse Ebenezer wanted a drink. That was why he had paused at the trough. He thrust his muzzle deep into the cool spring-water and drank so long that Johnnie Green began to be worried, for fear he would burst.
But old Ebenezer wouldn't budge until he had drunk his fill. When he was ready (and not before) the wagon went rumbling up the road again, taking Johnnie Green and his grandmother home to the farmhouse--and likewise bearing Daddy Longlegs back to the stone wall, where little Mr. Chippy lived in the wild grapevine.