" I do not see at first why he cries
and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee,
coo-ee," he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
that, come at last to the boarded pen.
"That's the idee," says the helper.
"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life."
From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
muscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
neck and chapped hands.
"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in the
wagon and put 'em in."
So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
panic.
"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
in the wool of one of the ewes.
"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the man in the
wagon.
"That's my old game--wrastling," the leader remarks, struggling with the
next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!"
"That's the idee," says the man in the wagon.
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