She was ready to run at anything, and the old man being the only living thing in sight, she plunged toward him.

[Illustration:  “I WILL SIT ON THE STILE, AND CONTINUE TO SMILE.”]

What could he do?  He was a short, stout old man, and could not run very fast, and, though he tried his best, he only just managed to reach the stile and plump down on it, all out of breath, as the cow neared him.

Then he suddenly remembered reading somewhere that if you looked right into an animal’s eyes, it would run away from you.

“Ah!” thought he, “I’ll look straight at her, and if I smile at the same time, she wont have the heart to hurt me.”

So he put on a smile (of course it was not a very beautiful one, for he was in a hurry, but it was the best he could do), and stared straight into the cow’s eyes.  She saw that smile, and it so touched her that she stopped short.  Then she sauntered back a little way, but the thought of that aggravating fly, and that awful frog, was too much for her poor nerves, and turning around, she dashed madly on again.

In another minute, the poor old man—­cane, little legs, smile and all—­was up in the air.

He alighted in the top of a hickory-tree.  One branch grazed his eye, two ran into his legs, while another held his smile stiff and straight.

Thus he stayed until an eagle caught sight of him, pounced right down, and flew off with him to her nest, which was on a huge rock that rose straight up into the cold air and made the summit of a mountain.

When the old eagle plumped the little old man down into the nest, just imagine, if you can, how astonished the eaglets were!  They opened their beaks as well as their eyes, and cried out: 

“What’s this, mother?  What is this?”

“Oh! it’s only a man,” cried the old eagle.  “I found him roosting in the top of a tree.  Don’t know how he got there.  Suppose he was trying to fly, and couldn’t.  Tell us how it was, old man.”

“Can he talk?”

“Talk!” said the eagle.  “Of course he can talk.  And he can tell stories, too, I warrant you.  So, if you like, you may keep him to tell you stories.”

“Oh, wont that be nice!  Tell us a story, right off,” they all screamed, jerking the old man down into the nest.

“But it’s so dirty here,” said he, looking around, with his nose turned up a little.  “Let me sit on the edge of the nest, wont you?—­and I’ll tell you all the stories you want.”

“You’ll fall over.”.

“Oh no, I wont.  I’ll hold on with my cane and my legs.  Now just shut your beaks, so you wont look so savage, and listen.”

So the old man perched himself on the edge of the nest.  The eaglets took hold of his coat with their beaks, to keep him from falling; and he told them the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”; and when that was ended, another, and then another.

He didn’t eat much supper that night, for they hadn’t any convenience for cooking.  And he didn’t sleep well, either, for whenever one of the eaglets woke up in the night, it always pinched him with its beak, to make sure he was there.  So he resolved to get away as soon as he could.