The Tale of Old Dog Spot Part 2

"If you're going to move any wood--" Farmer Green replied with a wink at the hired man--"if you're going to move any wood you might as well move it into the woodshed and pile it up neatly."

When he heard that suggestion Johnnie Green looked very glum. For a minute or two he thought he wouldn't bother to help old Spot find what he was looking for. But Spot teased and teased. And Johnnie couldn't help being curious to know what it was that Spot was after.

"Maybe there's a muskrat here," he said to himself. "If there is, I'll have his skin to pay me for my trouble."

V

A DEEP SECRET

Old Spot wouldn't let Johnnie Green alone. He kept jumping against him and whining, begging him to move some of the wood, because there was something very, very interesting beneath it.

Still Johnnie hesitated. He hadn't intended to do any work that afternoon.

"After all," he thought, "I'll have to help carry in this wood sooner or later. Really, I might as well take some of it into the woodshed now."

To Spot's delight he bent over and began gathering an armful of wood.

"Wow! Wow!" Spot howled. "Thank goodness I'm going to get what's under this pile, after all."

Johnnie Green carried armful after armful of wood from the yard and piled it in the shed back of the kitchen. All the time old dog Spot was urging him with yelps and barks and whines and moans to move faster. And all the time Johnnie Green was working as spryly as he could.

Whatever it might be that Spot wanted to get under the woodpile in the yard, Johnnie hoped it wouldn't escape through the crevices between the sticks.

"I don't want to get myself all tired out for nothing," Johnnie said to himself. "I was going fis.h.i.+ng this afternoon."

While Johnnie hurried back and forth between the woodpile and the shed Spot clawed away at the edge of the pile. He thrust his nose beneath loose sticks and pushed them about. He uttered pitiful sounds.

"I never saw that dog take on so," Farmer Green remarked.

"And I never saw Johnnie work so hard," said the hired man. "When there's wood to be carried in he's usually a mile away."

Farmer Green laughed.

"He'll quit as soon as Spot gets what he wants," he replied. "It's too bad this sort of thing doesn't happen oftener. Except for driving the cows home, this is the first time I ever knew a boy and a dog to do much besides play, when they're together."

Turkey Proudfoot, the huge gobbler, came hurrying around the corner of the barn to see what was going on. He had an idea that he ruled the farmyard.

"What's all this row about?" he gobbled at old Spot. "Have you lost something?"

"Yes!" Spot told him. "Johnnie Green's helping me to find it. We're moving part of the woodpile."

"What did you lose?" Turkey Proudfoot demanded.

Old Spot pretended not to hear him. He began barking again at Johnnie Green.

Mr. Catbird, who loved to play jokes on everybody, started mewing from his hiding place under the lilac bushes. He had noticed Spot's antics.

And he hoped to fool him into thinking there was a strange cat around the place. For Spot was a famous chaser of all cats--so long as they kept running away from him and didn't turn around and try to scratch him.

To Mr. Catbird's astonishment old Spot paid no heed to his catcalls.

"This is queer," Mr. Catbird muttered. "Whenever I've mewed before he has always come a-running. There must be something uncommonly interesting under that woodpile."

VI

BURIED TREASURE

Henrietta Hen, who was one of the busiest busybodies on the farm, came along and stood and watched old dog Spot while he dug and scratched and howled about the woodpile.

"What on earth is the matter with you?" she asked him. "I don't make half that fuss when I've just laid an egg and really have something to cackle about."

"I've no time to talk with you now," Spot told Henrietta Hen. "Can't you see that Johnnie Green and I are moving the woodpile?"

"Why are you doing that?" Henrietta inquired.

"There's something beneath it that I want," he said hurriedly.

Henrietta Hen gave a sudden start.

"I wonder if it's a weasel!" she exclaimed. And since he didn't reply, and she had learned to be mortally afraid of weasels, she ran off squawking, to hide high up in the haymow in the barn.

Johnnie Green hadn't carried away much more of the woodpile when old dog Spot began to dig furiously in the dirt. And in a few seconds' time he unearthed a big bone.

It was a choice bone. He had buried it several days before. And when he came back from the woods and found a woodpile on top of the place where he had hidden it, it was no wonder that he made such a howdy-do.

Johnnie Green looked much upset as he stood stock still and saw Spot trot away with the bone in his mouth.

"So _that_ was what he was after all the time!" he cried at last. "I hoped it was a muskrat."

His father and the hired man laughed and laughed.

"I don't see any joke," Johnnie grumbled. "Here I've piled up wood enough in the shed to last a month. And I might have been fis.h.i.+ng all the time."

"Well," said his father, "whose fault is it?"

"Old Spot's, I should think!" Johnnie replied.

"I don't see how you can blame him," said Farmer Green. "Suppose you had buried a piece of strawberry shortcake here, expecting to eat it for your dinner. And suppose there wasn't another piece as good--or as big--to be had anywhere. And suppose you had come back from a tramp in the woods, hungry as--well, hungry as you were this noon. Wouldn't you want that piece of shortcake? If you could get old Spot to move the wood off it, wouldn't you be glad to have him do it?"

"Maybe!" Johnnie admitted. "Maybe! But Spot wasn't after a piece of strawberry shortcake. He was after an old bone. And he fooled me."

"I should say that you fooled yourself," his father retorted. "Anyhow, we're going to have strawberry shortcake for supper to-night. I heard your mother say so. And she made a special cake for you."