Show thornton W V Burky sess v ilar ila r f f fi f JJ THE FARMER MAKES FRIENDS WITH BILLY MINK T HE farmer under whose woodpile billy mink was living did a lot of thinking after he guessed that it was billy mink that had driven an all the rats out of his barn into his house afi if I 1 could get that little brown rascal over here to the house thought the farmer 1 I would soon be rid of those pesky rats but how am I 1 going to do it it if he know that those rats iare are over here he certainly will not venture any nearer to the house than that woodpile and if he cannot get into the henhouse to steal my chickens he wont stay around here very long because he will have little to eat the thing for me to do is to see that he has plenty to eat and learns where it comes from so the very first thing the farmer did the next morning was to put some scraps of fresh meat just outside the woodpile it take billy mink long to find them of course the farmer was out of sight he was in the barn peeping through a crack he saw billy come out from under the wood and sniff at the pieces of meat it was clear that billy was suspicious he went all around those scraps of meat and the farmer could tell by the way he moved that billy suspected a a trap I 1 but billy found no trap of course not because there was no trap at last he ventured to seize one of those scraps of meat and darted back into the woodpile with it A few minutes later he was out again just as cautious as before so on one e by one he took the scraps of meat under tinder the woodpile the farmer smiled as he saw the last scrap disappear he knew that billy had enough for a good meal and that tha t with a stomach well filled he would probably take a nap this is just what billy did before he fell asleep he kept wondering about those scraps of meat and how they happened to be so handy its funny thought billy how that meat happened to be right there I 1 wonder if that farmer could have dropped it if he did I 1 hope hell do it again with this billy went to sleep just at dusk billy awoke he was hungry again he began to think of those hens over in the henhouse then he remembered the trap he had found over there and decided he would keep away from the henhouse ile he decided that he would go over to the barn to see if any of those rats had returned and then all of a sudden he remembered that easy breakfast he had had that morning instantly billy popped his head out from the woodpile he really expect to find any more scraps of meat and you can guess just how surprised and pleased he was when he found that there were more scraps just where he had found his breakfast that morning for the first time billy suspected that they might have been put there especially for him and in his heart he began to have a friendly feeling for that farmer T W burgess service |