s, my child. The older I grow, the more I find out, and the
better care I take of my stock. My grandfather would open his eyes in
amazement, and ask me if I was an old women petting her cats if he were
alive, and could know the care I give my sheep. He used to let his flock
run till the fields were covered with snow, and bite as close as they
liked, till there wasn't a scrap of feed left. Then he would give them
an open shed to run under, and throw down their hay outside. Grain they
scarcely knew the taste of. That they would fall off in flesh, and half
of them lose their lambs in the spring, was an expected thing. He would
say I had them kennelled, if he could see my big, closed sheds, with
the sunny windows that my flock spend the winter in. I even house them
during the bad fall storms. They can run out again. Indeed, I like to
get them in, and have a snack of dry food, to break them in to it. They
are in and out of those sheds all winter. You must go in, Laura, and
see the self-feeding racks. On bright, winter days they get a run in
the cornfields. Cold doesn't hurt sheep. It's the heavy rain that soaks
their fleeces.

"With my way I seldom lose a sheep, and they're the most profitable
stock I have. If I could not keep them, I think I'd give up farming.
Last year my lambs netted me eight dollars each. The fleeces of the ewes
average eight pounds, and sell for two dollars each. That's something to
brag of in these days, when so many are giving up the sheep industry."

"How many sheep have you, uncle?" asked Miss Laura.

"Only fifty, now. Twenty-five here and twenty-five down below in the
orchard. I've been selling a good many this spring."

"These sheep are larger than those in the orchard, aren't they?" said
Miss Laura.

"Yes; I keep those few Southdowns for their fine quality. I don't make
as much on them as I do on these Shropshires. For an all-around sheep
I like the Shropshire. It's good for mutton, for wool, and for rearing
lambs. There's a great demand for mutton nowadays, all through our
eastern cities. People want more and more of it. And it has to be
tender, and juicy, and finely flavored, so a person has to be particular
about the feed the sheep get."

"Don't you hate to have these creatures killed that you have raised and
tended so carefully?" said Miss Laura with a little shudder.

"I do," said her uncle; "but never an animal goes off my place that I
don't know just how it's going to be put to deat