CRACKED CORN

The next time Johnnie Green dragged Snowball into the farmyard he shut the gate carefully behind him.

“We’ll never join the circus if you’re going to behave like this,” Johnnie told Snowball severely. “Now, you pay attention!”

He held up a bare hoop not a paper-covered one and when he said, “Jump!” Snowball showed that he had not forgotten his lesson of the afternoon before.

“That’s better!” cried Johnnie Green. “Jump again!” And when Snowball jumped once more Johnnie was so pleased that he went into the chicken house and came back with a handful of cracked corn. “Here!” he said to Snowball. “There’s more like it if you behave yourself.”

Snowball munched his corn contentedly.

“The black lamb would like this,” he thought. “I’ll tell him about this corn the next time I see him. Then maybe he won’t be so quick to call me stupid.”

Somehow the cracked corn made Snowball forget all about the frightful picture of the tiger that grinned from the side of the barn. And at last Johnnie succeeded in getting Snowball to jump through one of the paper hoops which he had so carefully made the day before.

“There!” Johnnie cried. “You’ve done it at last!” And he was so delighted that he went once more to the chicken house. And this time he brought back two handfuls of cracked corn.

Unluckily, just as he came out of the chicken house he met his father going in.

“Here!” Farmer Green exclaimed. “What are you doing with my chicken feed?”

“I’m giving a little to Snowball,” Johnnie told him.

“Ah!” cried Farmer Green with a sly smile. “Fattening your lamb for market, eh?”

Johnnie’s face fell. “No!” he replied. “Of course not! I wouldn’t sell Snowball. He’s he’s too valuable.”

Farmer Green guffawed.

“He’s a circus lamb!” Johnnie cried hotly. “He’s learning circus tricks!”

“Well,” said his father, “maybe I have some circus hens in here, for all I know. Don’t you feed my corn to that lamb!”

“Can your hens jump through paper hoops?” Johnnie asked.

“Can your lamb?” demanded Farmer Green.

“Watch!” said Johnnie then. And, holding up another of the paper-covered hoops, he persuaded Snowball to leap through it neatly.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Farmer Green whatever that may mean.

Johnnie Green thought it was a good time to ask a question.

“Mayn’t I give him a little corn once in a while?” he begged.

“Oh, I suppose so,” said his father. “But if you get him too fat he won’t be much of a jumper.”

“But jumping ought to keep him thin,” Johnnie insisted.

Just then Snowball gave a plaintive bleat: “Baa-a-a-a!”

“There!” Johnnie exclaimed. “He thinks so, too!”