Snowball exclaimed as he picked himself up. "You're
bigger than you look."

"Do you want any more?" the black ram demanded fiercely. "I've done you
the honor to knock you down. Is once enough?"

Snowball thought once was even too much. He left the black ram hurriedly
and ran down toward the bars.

Some very odd looking creatures were entering the pasture.

XXIII

A MYSTERY

As Snowball drew near the pasture bars he forgot about the blow on the
head that the black ram had given him. The strange sights that greeted
his eyes drove all unpleasant things out of his mind.

Snowball knew that the sheep he saw before him must be his old
companions. But they were so changed, by shearing, that he couldn't tell
who was who.

He stood still and stared at them and grinned.

"What amuses you, young man?" one of them asked him in a tart voice. The
speaker was a big old dame. Even with her fleece closely cropped she
looked undeniably fat. Yet she was wrinkled, too. And her neck had a
scrawny look.

Not until she spoke did Snowball guess that this person was Aunt Nancy
Ewe. The moment he heard her voice he knew her. And he couldn't help
laughing right in her face.

"Don't be rude, young man!" Aunt Nancy scolded. "Anybody would think you
had never seen a sheared flock before."

"I haven't," Snowball answered. "You're all so funny that I can't keep
my face straight."

"Well," she said, "you'll have a chance to laugh at yourself a little
later. For you'll certainly be sheared too."

Snowball turned sober instantly.

"Oh! Do you think so?" he cried.

"They'll never let you keep that fleece on all summer," Aunt Nancy
declared.

She had scarcely finished speaking when Farmer Green came into the
pasture. And Snowball was sure that Farmer Green looked directly at him.
But before Snowball could make up his mind to run, Johnnie Green came
hurrying after his father, and shouting.

"Don't touch Snowball!" he called. "Don't you shear him!"

"Why not?" his father asked him.

"Because," said Johnnie, "I want to shear him myself. He belongs to me."

"Very well!" his father replied. "Now we're here we may as well catch
him. And you can begin shearing him. It will probably take you all day,
because you've never sheared a sheep before."

"I don't want to shear him now," said Johnnie. "I'm going fishing
to-day. I'll do it to-morrow."

Then Farmer Green and Johnnie went away. And they hadn't passed the
bars when a gre