with a handful of cracked corn. "Here!" he said to
Snowball. "There's more like it if you behave yourself."

Snowball 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 Snowball forget all about the frightful
picture of the tiger that grinned from the side of the barn. And at last
Johnnie succeeded in getting Snowball 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 Snowball," 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
Snowball. 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 Snowball 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 Snowball gave a plaintive bleat: "_Baa-a-a-a!_"

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

XII

THE ACCIDENT

Snowball 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 Snowball run away from his young master when Johnnie
entered the pasture and called to him. Nothing that the rascally black
lamb said could persuade Snowball to lead Johnnie Green