FUN AND GRUMBLES
It stopped snowing at last and the weather turned clear and crisp. The sun came out. And so did Johnnie Green, riding on Twinkleheels. He did not get far from the barn, however. Where the snow wasn't piled in drifts high above Twinkleheels' head it reached up on his fat sides. He floundered about the farmyard for a time. And, falling once, he dumped Johnnie Green neatly into a drift, head first.
The spill didn't hurt Johnnie in the least. But snow went up the inside of his sleeves, and down his neck, and into his eyes and ears and even his mouth.
He jumped up spluttering. And Twinkleheels jumped at the same time. He tried to run. But he could make little headway in the snow, and Johnnie caught his bridle rein and stopped him.
"You'd better put that pony back in the barn," Farmer Green called from the woodshed door. "After I yoke up Bright and Broad and break out the drive to the road you can ride Twinkleheels again. He might cut himself in this heavy going."
Twinkleheels sniffed as he heard what Farmer Green said.
"This is all nonsense," he grumbled to the old horse Ebenezer as Johnnie led him into his stall. "Farmer Green doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a hundred times sprier than Bright. And I'm a hundred times sprier than Broad. That makes me two hundred times sprier than both of them. It's silly to put me in my stall and take them out. They won't be able to move. They'll get stuck fast in a drift, and goodness knows how we'll ever haul them out."
"I shouldn't worry about the oxen if I were you," Ebenezer replied. "It seems to me Bright and Broad are old enough and big enough to look out for themselves."
"That's just the trouble!" cried Twinkleheels. "They're too old and they're too big. They're terribly heavy. If they were stuck in a drift I don't believe you and the bays could pull them out--not even if I helped you."
Ebenezer sighed deeply.
"I'm going to sleep now," he told Twinkleheels.
Soon Twinkleheels could hear Farmer Green shouting "Gee!" and "Haw!"
"There!" Twinkleheels called to the two bays. "There's Farmer Green talking to Bright and Broad. I hope they're not helpless already."
The bays snickered.
"Don't laugh!" Twinkleheels begged them. "It's not funny. It would be awful for them to spend the rest of the winter in a snow bank."
"We weren't laughing at Bright and Broad," the bays explained.
Twinkleheels tried to look at them; but old Ebenezer's bony back was in the way.
"I don't know what amuses you, then," he snapped.
"Maybe you'll find out later," the bays told him.
And he did. When Johnnie Green next led him out of the barn Twinkleheels discovered that a broad path had been opened from the barn to the highway. And a little distance up the road Farmer Green and Bright and Broad were battling with the drifts.