Brave spirits have fainted at the sight of spiders,
others have turned pale at lizards, and some have shivered when
cats crossed their paths. The only thing Tom feared on any number
of legs, from centipedes to men, was Stumpy.
"Git out, ye imp of Satan!" she would say, raising her hand when
he wandered too near; "or I'll smash ye!" The next instant she
would be dodging behind the cart out of the way of Stumpy's
lowered horns, with a scream as natural and as uncontrollable as
that of a schoolgirl over a mouse. When he stood in the path
cleared of snow from house to stable door, with head down,
prepared to dispute every inch of the way with her, she would
tramp yards around him, up to her knees in the drift, rather than
face his obstinate front.
The basest of ingratitude actuated the goat. When the accident
occurred that gained him his sobriquet and lost him his tail, it
was Tom's quickness of hand alone that saved the remainder of his
kidship from disappearing as his tail had done. Indeed, she not
only choked the dog who attacked him, until he loosened his hold
from want of breath, but she threw him over the stable-yard fence
as an additional mark of her displeasure.
In spite of her fear of him, Tom never dispossessed Stumpy. That
her Patsy loved him insured him his place for life.
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