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Tonio walked slowly down the road toward his home. He didn't cry, but he looked as if he wished he could just come across somebody else who was doing something wrong! He'd like to teach him better.

He had the willow switch in his hand. The Maestro had given it to him, "to remember him by," he said. Tonio felt pretty sure he could remember him without it, but he switched the weeds beside the road with it as he walked along, and there was some comfort in that.

At last he remembered that he had a luncheon in the crown of his hat. He sat down beside the road and ate all four tortillas and every single bean. Then he went home. His mother was not in the house when he got there.

Jasmin came frisking up to Tonio and jumped about him and licked his hand. It seemed strange to Tonio that even a dog cold be cheerful in such a miserable world. He took his lasso down from the wall and went out again with Jasmin.

The cat was lying back of the house in the sunshine asleep. Tonio pointed her out to Jasmin and he sent her up the fig tree in a hurry. Then Jasmin chased the hens. He drove the red rooster right among the beehives, and when the bees came out to see what was the matter they chased Jasmin instead of the rooster, and stung him on the nose. Jasmin ran away yelping to dig his nose in the dirt, and Tonio went on by himself through the woods.

Soon he came to the stepping-stones that led across the river to the goat-pasture, and there he met José's son and another boy.

"We aren't going; we've been," said José's son, whose name was Juan. The other boy's name was Ignacio.

"Well, where have you been then?" said Tonio. "Down to the lake hunting crabs. We didn't find any," they said.

You see there is no law in Mexico that every child must go to school, and the parents of Juan and Ignacio didn't make them go either, so they often stayed away.

"What's the reason you're not in school?" Juan said to Tonio. "I thought your father always made you go."

"Well," said Tonio, "I—I—hum—well—I thought I would rather play bull-fight up in the pasture! I've got an old goat up there trained so he'll butt every time he sees me. Come along."

The three boys crossed on the stepping-stones, and ran up the hill on the other side of the river to the goat-pasture.

There was a growing hedge of cactus plants around the goat-pasture. This kind of cactus grows straight up in tall, round spikes about as large around as a boy's leg, and higher than a man's head. The spikes are covered with long, stiff spines that stick straight out and prick like everything if you run into them. The only way to get through such a fence is to go to the gate, so the boys ran along until they came to some bars. They opened the bars (and forgot to put them up again) and went into the pasture.

IV

When they got inside the pasture the boys looked about for the goat. This goat was quite a savage one, and was kept all by himself in a small field. It did not take them long to find him. He was grazing quietly in the shadow of a mesquite tree. As Tonio had the only lasso there was, he knew he could have the game all his own way, so he said,—

"I'll take the first turn with the lasso, Ignacio; you wave your red serape at the goat while Juan stirs him up from behind."

The goat had his head down, eating grass, and did not notice the boys until suddenly Juan split the air behind him with a fearful roar and prodded his legs with a stick.

"Ah, Toro!" roared Juan at the top of his lungs just as he had heard the matadors do at a real bull-fight, and at the same moment Ignacio shook out his red serape.

The goat looked up, saw Tonio and the red serape, and immediately stood up on his hind legs. Then he came down with a thump on his fore feet, put his head down, and ran at Ignacio like a bullet from a gun. Ignacio waved the serape and shouted, and when the goat got very near, he jumped to one side as he had seen the matadors do, and the goat butted with all his might right into the serape.

When he struck the serape his horn went through one end of it. Ignacio had hold of the other end and before he knew what had happened he was rolling backward down a little slope into a pool of water which was the goat's drinking-place.

Meanwhile the goat went bounding about the pasture with the serape hanging from one horn. Every few minutes he would stamp on it and paw it with his fore feet. Ignacio picked himself out of the water, and then all three boys began a wild chase to get back the serape. It would be a sad day for Ignacio if he went home without it.

Serapes are the most valuable things there are in a peon's hut, and were never intended to be used by goats in this way.

Tonio couldn't lasso the goat because the serape covered his horns, so the boys all tried to snatch off the serape as the goat went galloping past, but every time they tried it the goat butted at them, and they had to run for their lives.

At last the goat stood up on his hind legs and came down on the serape so hard that there was a dreadful tearing sound, and there was the serape torn clear in two and lying on the ground!

When his horns were free, the goat looked around for the boys. He was a very mad goat, and when he saw them he went for them like an express train. Juan ran one way, and Ignacio ran the other. Tonio was a naughty boy, but he wasn't a coward. He kept his lasso whirling over his head, and as the goat came by, out flew the loop and dropped over his horns!

The goat was much stronger than he, but Tonio braced back with all his might and held on to the rope. Then began a wild dance! The goat went bounding around the pasture with Tonio at the other end of the rope bouncing after him.

It was a sight to see, and Juan and Ignacio were not the only ones who saw it either.

V

Señor Fernandez was going by on his fine black horse, and when he heard the yells of the boys he rode up to the pasture to see what was going on. He was right beside the bars when the goat and Tonio came tearing through.

The goat jumped over the bars that the boys had left down, but Tonio caught his foot and fell down, and the goat jerked the rope out of his hands and went careering off over the fields and was soon out of sight.

Tonio sat up all out of breath and looked at Señor Fernandez. Señor Fernandez looked at Tonio. Juan and Ignacio were nowhere to be seen. They were behind bushes in the goat-pasture, and they were both very badly scared.

"Didn't you know that was my goat?" said Señor Fernandez severely. "What business have you driving it mad like that? Get up."

Tonio got up. He was stiff and sore all over. Moreover, his hands were all skinned inside, where the rope had pulled through.

"I d—don't know," gasped poor Tonio. "I—I don't see them anywhere." (Tonio was looking right up into the top of the cactus hedge when he said this, so I am quite sure he spoke the truth.)

Tonio began to hunt around stones and bushes in the pasture with Señor Fernandez following right behind on his horse. It wasn't long before he caught a glimpse of red. It was the pieces of the serape, which Ignacio had picked up. Tonio pointed it out, and Señor Fernandez galloped to it and brought out the two culprits. Then he marched the three boys back to the village in front of his horse, Tonio with his blistered hands and torn clothes, Juan with bumps that were already much swollen, and Ignacio wet as a drowned rat and carrying the rags of the serape.

When they got back to the river they found Doña Teresa there washing out some clothes. When she saw them coming she stopped rubbing and looked at them. She was perfectly astonished. She supposed, of course, that Tonio was in school.

"Here, Doña Teresa, is a very bad boy," Señor Fernandez said to her. "He has been chasing my goat all around the pasture and lassoing it, and he left the bars down and they are broken besides, and no one knows where the goat is by this time. I'll leave him to you, but I want you to make a thorough job of it."

He didn't say just what she should make a thorough job of, but Tonio hadn't the smallest doubt about what he meant. Doña Teresa seemed to understand too.

Señor Fernandez rode on and left Tonio with his mother while he took the other two boys to their homes. What happened there I do not know, but when she and Tonio were alone I do know that Doña Teresa said sternly, "Go bring me a strong switch from the willow tree," and that Tonio thought, as he went for it, that there were more willow trees in the world than were really needed.

And I know that when Doña Teresa had done "IT"—whatever it was that Señnor Fernandez had asked her to do thoroughly—Tonio felt that it would be a very long time before he took any interest in either lizards or goats again.

That evening Pancho went out with Pinto and hunted up the goat and put him back in the pasture and brought home Tonio's lasso, and when he hung it up on the nail he said to Tonio, "I think you're too young to be trusted with a lasso. Let that alone for two weeks."

That was the very worst of all. To be told that he was too young! Tonio went out and sat down under the fig tree and thought perhaps he'd better run away.

But pretty soon Tita came out and sat down beside him and told him she was sure he never meant any harm about the lizard, and his mother washed his skinned hands and put oil on them, and brought him some molasses to eat on his tortillas just as if she still loved him in spite of everything.

Tonio's Bad Day

Part 2 of 2

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V