The cows looked around, expecting to see some boys driving them, but Buddy and Brighteyes hid behind their big branches, and the cows were none the wiser.  So they swallowed their cuds, blinked their eyes, switched their tails, and started up and down the hills, over the field, toward the barnyard to be milked.

Now, before the farmer-man had come very far from the fence, he met the cows, and maybe he wasn’t surprised to see them coming.  But he was glad, too, let me tell you, for he didn’t have to walk any farther with his cut foot.

Then Brighteyes and Buddy ran and hid, for they did not want to be seen, and the man jumped upon the back of a gentle cow, and rode her all the way home, and told his wife how the whole herd, in some strange manner, had come all the way from the back of the field alone.  You see he didn’t know Buddy and Brighteyes had driven them.

Well, in a few days the man’s foot was well, so he could drive the cows himself, and the farmer’s wife gave Dr. Bigg’s family lots of buttermilk; for, somehow, she guessed that the little guinea pig boy and girl had done the farmer a kindness, as their papa had told them to.

Now the following story will be about Buddy on horseback—­that is, providing no cats get into our coalbin to scratch the furnace and make it go out.

[Illustration]

STORY XXV

BUDDY RIDES HORSEBACK.

One night Buddy Pigg’s mamma came into his room, where he was sleeping soundly and dreaming he was playing a ball game with Bully and Bawly, the frogs, and Mrs. Pigg gently shook her little boy by the shoulder.

“Wake up, Buddy!” she called.  “Wake up!”

“What’s the matter, mother?” Buddy exclaimed, as he sat up in bed.  “Is the house on fire?”

“No,” she answered, “but your papa is very sick, and I want you to go for Dr. Possum.”  Then Buddy jumped up very quickly and began to dress, for he loved his papa very much, and would do anything in the world for him.  When Buddy was ready to start he heard Dr. Pigg groaning very hard, and saying: 

“Oh, dear, what a pain I have!  Oh, dear!  When will Dr. Possum come?”

“Buddy is going for him at once,” Mrs. Pigg said.  “He will soon be here.  But have you no medicine that you can take?” For Dr. Pigg had once worked in a hospital, and generally had some medicine in the house, but this time he had none that would stop his pain.  So Buddy had to get ready to go for the doctor, while Mrs. Pigg and Brighteyes made mustard plasters for Dr. Pigg.

Well, when Buddy was all dressed, he happened to look out of the window, and he saw how dark it was, for there was no moon that night, and the stars were all hidden behind clouds.  But do you s’pose Buddy was going to stay home on that account?  No, sir-ee!  He was frightened, and I guess you’d have been, too, but he was brave, and he made up his mind he’d go for Dr. Possum.