The shaggy man thought they would taste better than the oat-straw, so
he walked over to get some. A little black dog with bright brown eyes
dashed out of the farm-house and ran madly toward the shaggy man, who
had already picked up three apples and put them in one of the big
wide pockets of his shaggy coat. The little dog barked and made a
dive for the shaggy man's leg; but he grabbed the dog by the neck and
put it in his big pocket along with the apples. He took more apples,
afterward, for many were on the ground; and each one that he tossed
into his pocket hit the little dog somewhere upon the head or back,
and made him growl. The little dog's name was Toto, and he was sorry
he had been put in the shaggy man's pocket.

Pretty soon Dorothy came out of the house with her sunbonnet, and she
called out:

"Come on, Shaggy Man, if you want me to show you the road to
Butterfield." She climbed the fence into the ten-acre lot and he
followed her, walking slowly and stumbling over the little hillocks in
the pasture as if he was thinking of something else and did not notice
them.

"My, but you're clumsy!" said the little girl. "Are your feet tired?"

"No, miss; it's my whiskers; they tire very easily in this warm
weather," said he. "I wish it would snow, don't you?"

"'Course not, Shaggy Man," replied Dorothy, giving him a severe look.
"If it snowed in August it would spoil the corn and the oats and the
wheat; and then Uncle Henry wouldn't have any crops; and that would
make him poor; and--"