A button--the
last button--popped off his pink apron and the sleeves rumpled
down over his hands. It felt all loose and useless, so Buddy
stopped long enough to pull the apron off and throw it beside
Sister before he crawled under the canvas flap and walked
down the spokes of a rear wheel. He did not mean to get in
the way of the wild cow, but he did want action for his
restless legs. He thought that if he went away from the wagon
and the herd and played while they were catching the wild
cow, it would be just the same as if he took a nap. Mother
hadn't thought of it, or she might have suggested it.
So Buddy went away from the wagon and down into a shallow dry
wash where the wild cow would not come, and played. The first
thing he saw was a scorpion-nasty old bug that will bite
hard-and he threw rocks at it until it scuttled under a ledge
out of sight. The next thing he saw that interested him at
all was a horned toad; a hawn-toe, he called it, after Ezra's
manner of speaking. Ezra had caught a hawntoe for him a few
days ago, but it had mysteriously disappeared out of the
wagon. Buddy did not connect his mother's lack of enthusiasm
with the disappearance. Her sympathy with his loss had seemed
to him real, and he wanted another, fully believing that in
this also mother would be pleased.
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