Читать книгу The Sins of Silvertip the Fox онлайн

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Nibble sniffed the air, but the wind had blown all the scent away, so he didn’t believe her. When he turned to her again she was trying to eat the twigs that she could reach with her long tongue. “Hey! Don’t you know better than that?” he demanded. “You’ll get pickers in your mouth, and, what’s much worse, you’ll feel awfully queer and sick inside of you. Doctor Muskrat says you should only eat that tree for medicine.”

Nibble felt very wise and grown-up beside this foolish cow. She wasn’t really wild and she wasn’t really tame. Poor beast! No wonder she was scary. She didn’t know enough to be either thing properly. “Come along!” he ordered. “I’ll take you down for a drink and then you can eat the willows. If you’re like the partridge you can nip the tips off a cottonwood that your long neck will reach up to.”

So the Red Cow hove herself up to her feet, tail first, as is the custom of cows, and followed him obediently. And he showed her the way to the warm spring that was Doctor Muskrat’s front door.