r the nose with all my might, and I didn't care how
far it came on the cars, or how much money it cost, it never would
chase me, and make me lose my fish again.

I didn't hear him until he splashed under the roots and then I was so
mad I didn't see that it was Laddie; I only knew that it was someone
who was going to help out that miserable ram, so I struck with all my
might, the sheep when I could hit it, if not, the man.

"You little demon, stop!" cried Laddie.

I got in a good one right on the ram's nose. Then Laddie dropped the
sheep and twisted the fish pole from my fingers, and I pushed him as
hard as I could, but he was too strong. He lifted the sheep, pulled it
to the bank, and rolled it, worked its jaws, and squeezed water from
it, and worked and worked.

"I guess you've killed it!" he said at last.

"Goody!" I shouted. "Goody! Oh but I am glad it's dead!"

"What on earth has turned you to a fiend?" asked Laddie, beginning work
on the sheep again.

"That ram!" I said. "Ever since Leon made it cross so it would chase
Polly Martin, it's got me oftener than her. I can't go anywhere for
it, and to-day it made me lose a big fish, and mother is waiting. She
thought maybe she could eat some."

Then I roared; bet I sounded like Bashan's bull.

"Dear Lord!" said Laddie dropping the sheep and taking me in his wet
arms. "Tell me, Biddy! Tell me how it is."

Then I forgot I was a Crusader, and told him all about it as well as I
could for choking, and when I finished he bathed my hot face, and
helped me from the roots. Then he went and looked down the hole I
showed him and he cried out quicklike, and threw himself on the grass,
and in a second up came the fish. Some one had rolled a big stone in
the hole, so the fish was all right, not even dead yet, and Laddie said
it was the biggest one he ever had seen taken from the creek. Then he
said if I'd forgive him and all our family, for spoiling the kind of a
life I had a perfect right to lead, and if I'd run to the house and get
a big bottle from the medicine case quick, he would see to it that some
place was fixed for that sheep where it would never bother me again.
So I took the fish and ran as fast as I could, but I sent May back with
the bottle, and did the scaling myself. No one at our house could do
it better, for Laddie taught me the right way long ago, when I was
small, and I'd done it hundreds of times.

Then I went to Candace and she put a lit