content to live like animals,
uninspired by the divine _afflatus_, untouched by the poetic fire. Full
of determined energy never to yield the high position he has acquired,
he rushes forth into the open air and takes his winding way through the
green meadows and leafy wilds. Here, sitting on the stump of an old
tree, he spies little Bob Peepers, weeping as if his heart would break:
the briny tears coursing down his ruddy cheeks form little rivulets of
salt water with high embankments of genuine soil on either side, and a
distracted map of a war-ridden country is depicted upon his
grief-stricken countenance. Full of compassion for the suffering, the
tender heart of the Poet melts at the sight, and in mellifluous tones he
asks, "What is the matter, BUB?"

Sobbingly digging his fists into his eyes, and carefully wiping his
classic nose on the sleeve of his jacket, the heart-broken mourner
murmurs:--

"I've lost my sheep,
And don't know where to find them,"

and bursts forth into a prolonged howl. That heart-rending cry of agony
is too much for the gentle Poet, who, sinking upon the ground beside the
weeper, ventures to whisper a hope that Time, or some of the neighbors,
may bring back the lost sheep and restore happiness and tranquillity to
the agitated bosom. The suggestion is met with incredulous scorn and
another burst of uncontrollable sorrow, amid the pauses of which Bob
recounts to his sympathetic friend how, "being wearied with watching the
gambolling sheep, he laid himself down in the meadow to sleep, and never
awoke till a blue-bottle fly, who buzzing about so tickled his eye that
sleep fled away. Then he rose to his feet, and looked around for the
gambolling sheep, but found, they were gone he couldn't tell where: so
he threw himself down in the deepest despair, bemoaning his strange
unaccountable loss, and the horrible beating he'd get from the Boss,
when at night he went home with his sad tale of woe. He was sure he
would never have courage to go."

The sad tale so pathetically and ingenuously told melted the already
simmering heart of the hearer, who counselled tranquillity and
philosophy in the words

"Let them alone and they'll come home,"

and jocularly added, as he saw a ray of hope lighting up the eye of the
boy, like the first rays of the sun seen through a fog,

"And bring their tails behind them."

The brilliant idea of their tails coming behind them instead of before
them t