Now Snigs was just getting a bottle of ginger pop off the ice, intending to regale himself. The ice-box stood on the back stoop for lack of space in the kitchen, and when he heard the summons to chase calves, Snigs, nothing loathe to join in the sport, hastily shoved the bottle of ginger ale into his hip pocket, and ran around the side of the house to join the pursuing party.
There was no doubt that the calves were Bradburys--by adoption. Bob instantly recognized them as the three which, as he supposed, he had made fast in the cow-yard. Whether they recognized him or not was less certain. They all three faced the six bipeds with that peculiarly innocent gaze of calfhood, lowering their heads and spreading their feet, all three in a row, the ecru Jersey, the tan and brown part Jersey and the black and white Holstein.
"You just go around on that side, Snigs," said Bob, as he and Ralph prepared to dash forward. "Drive them right up. We'll head them off from around the house."
This confident announcement proved how truly Rosie had spoken when she said that Bob did not know cows.
Drive them up, indeed! The moment Snigs came up somewhere near close enough to be of any use, the calves with one simultaneous, if not concerted, movement, lowered their heads a little further, kicked up their six hind legs and scuttled out into the road.
"There! That's the way they always act!" cried Gretta. "There's nothing on earth so hard to drive as calves, except pigs. Bob, run; head 'em off! Ralph, Snigs, get on up the road, or they'll go over into the next county. Come, Happie!" And Gretta herself followed Rosie down the road at top speed.
The calves paused, looking as who should say: "How strangely excited you all are!" Then they trotted quietly up the road, slipping past Rosie, Gretta and Happie by the simple device of dividing forces, one on one side, the other two on the other side of the road. Then they saw the boys, and stopped short, eyeing them blandly as they crept towards them, whirled suddenly, threw up their legs again, whisked their tails into an arch, and bolted for the boundary fence of the farm opposite the Ark.
"Keep 'em out of there!" shrieked Rosie. "That there field belongs to the crabbedest man in the township. My days, but it's hot!"