One day in early June, Friend Barton's flock of sheep--consisting of nine experienced ewes, six yearlings, and a sprinkling of close-curled lambs whose legs had not yet come into mature relations with their bodies--were gathered in a little railed inclosure, beside the stream which flowed into the "mill head." It was supplied by the waste from the pond, and when the gate was shut, rambled easily over the gray slate pebbles, with here and there a fall, just forcible enough to serve as a douche bath for a well-grown sheep. The victims were panting in their heavy fleeces, and their hoarse, plaintive tremolo mingled with the ripple of the water and the sound of young voices in a frolic. Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the best advantage. The two elder boys stood in the stream to receive the sheep, which she, with the help of little Jimmy, caught and dragged to the bank. The boys were at work now upon an elderly ewe, while Dorothy stood on the brink of the stream, braced against an ash sapling, dragging at the fleece of a beautiful but reluctant yearling. Her bare feet were incased in a pair of moccasins which laced around the ankle; her petticoats were kilted, and her broad hat bound down with a ribbon; one sleeve was rolled up, the other had been sacrificed in a scuffle in the sheep-pen. The new candidate for immersion stood bleating and trembling, with her fore feet planted against the slippery bank, pushing back with all her strength, while Jimmy propelled from the rear. "Boys!" Dorothy's clear voice called across the stream. "_Do_ hurry! She's been in long enough, now! Keep her head up, can't you, and squeeze the wool _hard_! You're not _half_ washing! Oh, Reuby! thee'll drown her! Keep her _head_ up!" Another unlucky douse and another half-smothered bleat,--Dorothy released the yearling and plunged to the rescue. "Go after that lamb, Reuby!" she cried, with exasperation in her voice. Reuby followed the yearling, which had disappeared over the orchard slope, upsetting an obstacle in its path, which happened to be Jimmy. He was now wailing on the bank, while Dorothy, with the ewe's nose tucked comfortably in the bend of her arm, was parting and squeezing the fleece, with the water swirling round her. Her stout arms ached, and her ears were stunned with the incessant bleating; she counted with dismay the sheep still waiting in the pen. "Oh, Jimmy! _do_ stop crying, or else go to the house!" "He'd better go after Reuby," said Sheppard Barton, who was now Dorothy's sole dependence. "Oh yes; do, Jimmy, that's a good boy. Tell him to let the yearling go, and come back quick."