The Tale of s...o...b..ll Lamb.

by Arthur Bailey.

I

BLACK AND WHITE

"Hurrah!" Johnnie Green shouted. And he dashed out of the woodshed and ran to the barnyard as fast as he could scamper.

There was a good reason for his high spirits and his haste. His father had just told him he might have a lamb for a pet.

Farmer Green followed Johnnie at a slower pace. When he reached the barnyard fence Johnnie was already on the other side of it, trying to catch a certain black lamb.

Now, Johnnie Green was spry; but this black lamb was sprier. Whenever Johnnie thought he had the lamb the black rascal always managed to slip out of his clutches.

"I'll help you," said Farmer Green. And climbing the fence, he soon had the lively lamb cornered and caught.

Then Johnnie lost no time in taking his new pet in his own arms.

"I'm going to call him----" Johnnie began, as his father let go of the struggling black armful.

But Johnnie Green never finished what he had started to say. The first thing he knew the lamb had squirmed out of his arms and was running up the lane.

Johnnie straightened up and gazed after him in dismay.

"I don't believe I'll call him anything," he murmured, half to himself.

Farmer Green couldn't help laughing. And then, noticing a very disappointed look on Johnnie's face, he said, "Cheer up, Johnnie! That lamb is the youngest one on the farm, but he's too big for a pet. He's a wild one. Let him run with the flock and we'll see if we can't do something to make you feel happy."

Well, Johnnie Green knew that when his father talked like that it was silly to be glum. So he cried, "All right!" And turning his back upon the black lamb, which was by this time almost up to the head of the lane, Johnnie walked back to the woodshed.

The next day, when Farmer Green came home from a drive over the hill, Johnnie shouted "Hurrah!" once more. For lying on a bit of hay in the bottom of the buggy was a white lamb no more than half as big as the lively black scamp that had got away from Johnnie the day before.

Johnnie Green didn't need to ask whose lamb this was. He knew at once that it was his own.

"Where'd you get him?" he demanded.

"At your uncle's!" his father explained.

Johnnie lifted the white lamb out of the buggy and set him down gingerly upon the ground. And the white lamb didn't try to run off. He was only a tiny thing, with a very soft coat and a very pink nose.

"I wonder if he's hungry," said Johnnie Green. "I'll get some corn and see if he wants anything."

"You'll have to feed him milk in a bottle," his father told him. "He isn't weaned yet. Bring him into the woodshed!"

In a little while Johnnie's father had found a baby's bottle, which he filled with warm milk.

Then all Johnnie had to do was to hold the bottle to his new pet's mouth. The lamb did the rest.

"I'm going to call him 's...o...b..ll,'" Johnnie announced. And then he began to laugh.

"Look at his tail!" he shouted. "He'll switch it off if he isn't careful."

For as s...o...b..ll drank the milk he jerked his stubby tail up and down at a great rate.

Old dog Spot, who was stretched upon the woodshed threshold, gazed at s...o...b..ll with a lofty air.

"That lamb has a queer notion of the way a tail ought to be wagged," he said deep down in his throat. "He ought to wag it from side to side. But I suppose he's too young to know better."

II

A RIDE TO TOWN

Much to old dog Spot's disgust Johnnie Green and his new pet lamb soon became great friends. It wasn't long before s...o...b..ll, as Johnnie called the white lamb, followed his young master about the yard and even into the farmhouse--when Mrs. Green wasn't looking.

It was a remark that Johnnie made about s...o...b..ll one day which caused old Spot to speak his mind plainly to the Muley Cow. Johnnie Green actually said, in Spot's hearing, "s...o...b..ll knows as much as a dog!"

"I never did have any use for sheep," Spot told the Muley Cow.

"Everybody knows they're all terribly stupid. So you can imagine how I felt when Johnnie Green spoke like that to his father."

The Muley Cow chewed her cud. She had a far-off look in her eyes, as if she might be thinking about what Spot was saying--or as if she might not. Anyhow, she did not speak.

"And to think--" Spot growled--"to think how I used to take care of Johnnie when he was no more than a baby! Do you suppose this lamb could take care of a baby? Do you suppose he'd pull a baby out of the mill pond? Or fight off a bull? Or kill a snake?"

The Muley Cow turned her calm face upon Spot.

"If you're jealous----" she began.

"Jealous!" Spot barked. "Of course I'm not jealous. But I must say that this s...o...b..ll Lamb is very displeasing to me."

"Then why don't you----" the Muley Cow began again.

"I would," Spot interrupted, "I would--only I'm not a sheep-killer. And I don't intend to become one."

"This boy," said the Muley Cow, "he'll grow tired of that lamb. The other boys will begin to tease him because the lamb follows him about.

And that will be too much for Johnnie. . . . I know boys," the Muley Cow declared.

Old dog Spot sighed. "I hope you're not mistaken," he remarked. "Time will tell. Just now anybody can see that Johnnie Green is simply crazy about that silly new pet of his."

It was only a few days later that something happened to cause old dog Spot to lose all hope.

Johnnie Green and his father hitched up the old horse Ebenezer and started for the village. Of course Spot would have followed them, under the wagon, if he had been at the barn when they left. But he wasn't. He was up in the pasture, chasing woodchucks.