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LITTLE BO-PEEP 63
" What, lost their tails again ! "
"Yes, every one; and brother Jack will scold me
dreadfully for it takes so long for them to grow, and he
;
hates to see them that way."
"Bo-peep! Little Boy Blue has been with you,
you know he has!" exclaimed the Chimney-Elf severely.
Bo-peep hung down her head and twisted the
blue ribbons upon her crook.
" Well just a few minutes," whispered she.
" His
cows were pasturing along the
road as nice as could be,
and my sheep were all grazing on the hill, so he and I
picked a few flowers, and he made me this wreath.
We
just talked a little, and then all at once we saw that the
cows and the sheep were gone, and we heard his father
calling out!
"'Boy Blue! have you gone to sleep under that
hay-stack again ? If you have ' and then I hunted
and hunted after my sheep, and once I sat down to rest,
and fell asleep just for a little minute, and when I waked
up I was sure I heard them bleating ;
but I didn't and
then I looked and looked again, and at last I found
them ; but, oh
"
!
And Bo-peep burst out crying again, and pointed
to her poor tailless sheep.
"
How did it
happen ? " asked Ehoda tenderly.
" Why, there's an old fox that lives in the wood
who, a good many years ago, got his own tail cut ofl
in a trap, and ever since he tries to persuade all the