Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/146

142 way with me and shoo off the old sheep if she comes near me?"

"Sheep! That's a ram. All you gotter do is to take a stick along. That ol' coward wouldn't do nothing—anything—to you if you show him a stick or a rock. But I reckon I'll go along with you. I ain't—haven't—got nothing—anything—to do, and I was on my way to Aunt Pearly Gates's myself, anyhow. So come along!"

"I'm afraid the sheep—ram—has done for my bonnet," sighed Rebecca as she ruefully picked up the shapeless bit of millinery. "I'm almost glad, because now even Mrs. O'Shea couldn't think it was showing respect to Daddy for me to wear it."

"Let me make you a hat out of sycamore leaves; the sun will fair bake your brains," said Jo. He jumped up and caught the low-hanging branch of a plane tree that grew near the stream, plucked a few of the broad leaves and deftly fashioned a hat for the girl, fastening the parts with twigs. "How lovely!" crooned Rebecca. "Now I'll trim it with daisies and be as grand as one could wish." She put it on and looked at Jo demurely.

"’Taint so bad—I mean it isn't so bad. But your dress is mighty black."