The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 556

"Pine straw is just as good as regular straw, I tell you!" Smush said. "I read it in a technical document of some kind!"

"There's no way!" Mogey insisted. "It's all piney and gross."

The reason Mogey and Smush were debating the merits of pine straw is that their neighbor, Phil the Farmer, had tasked them with taking care of his cow while he went to Jamaica for the week. For their help Mogey and Smush would have all the cow's milk, plus six golden coins as long as they didn't eat any portion of the animal.

But Mogey and Smush had run out of straw to feed the cow on Day 2, and now they were scrambling to find an apt substitute. With no other ideas, they hauled a wheelbarrow full of pine straw back to Phil the Farmer's barn and began pitching it into the cow's feedbasket to see what he would do.

"Excuse me," the cow said, "is that pine straw?"

"Yes," Smush replied.

"I can't eat pine straw," the cow said. "It's poisonous."

"Ha!" Mogey shouted. "Told you!"