The Tale of Snowball Lamb Part 6

s...o...b..ll munched his corn contentedly.

"The black lamb would like this," he thought. "I'll tell him about this corn the next time I see him. Then maybe he won't be so quick to call me stupid."

Somehow the cracked corn made s...o...b..ll forget all about the frightful picture of the tiger that grinned from the side of the barn. And at last Johnnie succeeded in getting s...o...b..ll to jump through one of the paper hoops which he had so carefully made the day before.

"There!" Johnnie cried. "You've done it at last!" And he was so delighted that he went once more to the chicken house. And this time he brought back two handfuls of cracked corn.

Unluckily, just as he came out of the chicken house he met his father going in.

"Here!" Farmer Green exclaimed. "What are you doing with my chicken feed?"

"I'm giving a little to s...o...b..ll," Johnnie told him.

"Ah!" cried Farmer Green with a sly smile. "Fattening your lamb for market, eh?"

Johnnie's face fell. "No!" he replied. "Of course not! I wouldn't sell s...o...b..ll. He's--he's too valuable."

Farmer Green guffawed.

"He's a circus lamb!" Johnnie cried hotly. "He's learning circus tricks!"

"Well," said his father, "maybe I have some circus hens in here, for all I know. Don't you feed my corn to that lamb!"

"Can your hens jump through paper hoops?" Johnnie asked.

"Can your lamb?" demanded Farmer Green.

"Watch!" said Johnnie then. And, holding up another of the paper-covered hoops, he persuaded s...o...b..ll to leap through it neatly.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" cried Farmer Green--whatever that may mean.

Johnnie Green thought it was a good time to ask a question.

"Mayn't I give him a little corn once in a while?" he begged.

"Oh, I suppose so," said his father. "But if you get him too fat he won't be much of a jumper."

"But jumping ought to keep him thin," Johnnie insisted.

Just then s...o...b..ll gave a plaintive bleat: "_Baa-a-a-a!_"

"There!" Johnnie exclaimed. "He thinks so, too!"

XII

THE ACCIDENT

s...o...b..ll was quick to learn one thing. He soon found that jumping through Johnnie Green's paper-covered hoops brought him plenty of cracked corn.

No longer did s...o...b..ll run away from his young master when Johnnie entered the pasture and called to him. Nothing that the rascally black lamb said could persuade s...o...b..ll to lead Johnnie Green a chase.

Much to the black lamb's disgust s...o...b..ll would start for the bars the moment Johnnie appeared there. "Johnnie wants to give me a treat!"

s...o...b..ll would exclaim. "There's cracked corn waiting for me!" And off he would go.

Strange as it may seem, Johnnie tired of the circus tricks before s...o...b..ll did. It wasn't long before several days would go by without Johnnie's once holding up a hoop for s...o...b..ll to jump through. And often s...o...b..ll would moon about the farmyard _wishing_ that Johnnie would do that very thing.

"I hope the cracked corn isn't getting low," said s...o...b..ll to himself.

And he cried, "_Ba-a-a-a-a!_" But Johnnie Green paid no heed to him.

Though Johnnie was at that very moment in the swing he never once looked at s...o...b..ll as he roamed mournfully about.

So s...o...b..ll crossed the road and strolled up the steep bank opposite the farmhouse. And having nothing better to do he was about to stroll down again when he spied something that made him stop short.

Was that a paper-covered hoop that he saw, right there at the top of the bank? He wondered. It was round. And it was certainly covered with something that looked like paper.

For a moment s...o...b..ll thought he would walk around the hoop--if it was one--and examine it. He couldn't see anybody holding it up on edge. But there it was, just waiting for somebody to come along and jump through it!

"It's a hoop!" s...o...b..ll muttered to himself. "There's no doubt about that." And lowering his head he ran at the hoop--and jumped.

There was a splitting sound and a crash, both at the same time.

Instead of bursting through a thin paper sh.e.l.l and clearing the hoop neatly s...o...b..ll found himself wedged inside something. Though he didn't know it, he had b.u.t.ted the end of a barrel, knocking in its head and plunging headlong inside it.

Meanwhile Johnnie Green had stopped swinging. He looked across the road just in time to see the barrel totter on the edge of the steep bank. Not only totter; but begin to roll down hill!

Out of the barrel stuck two woolly legs, both kicking frantically.

"What in the world----" Johnnie Green exclaimed. He leaped from the swing and ran towards the strange sight. But he was too late to help.

The barrel fast gathered headway. It crossed the road like some live thing, to bring up against the farmhouse with a terrific smash.

Instantly the barrel fell into a dozen pieces as its staves caved in.

And out of the wreck rose s...o...b..ll. He gave one frightened bleat. And then he tore off towards the pasture as fast as he could run. He didn't even wait to see if Johnnie Green would give him a treat of cracked corn.

As he ran he said to himself, "There may have been a tiger inside that thing. . . . I don't know! . . . I wouldn't join the circus for all the cracked corn in the world!"

XIII

FOLLOW MY LEADER

There was one game of which Farmer Green's sheep never seemed to tire.