Produced by La Monte H.P. Yarroll and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: "HAVE OUR SHEEP ALWAYS BEEN DIPPED?"] The Story of Wool BY SARA WARE BASSETT Author of "The Story of Lumber" and "The Story of Leather" ILLUSTRATED BY ELIZABETH OTIS THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT 1913 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY _To MY FATHER_ _It gives me pleasure to acknowledge the courtesy and cooperation of the United States Department of Agriculture._ _S. W. B._ Contents I. A Mysterious Telegram 9 II. Who Sandy Was 27 III. The Dipping 36 IV. Sandy Gives Donald a Lesson 56 V. Thornton Has a Reprimand 70 VI. Donald's First Adventure On the Range 82 VII. A Narrow Escape 103 VIII. Donald Has a Surprise 122 IX. A Second Adventure 136 X. A Prediction That Came True 152 XI. The Shearing 165 XII. Home to the East 183 XIII. Donald Decides 204 [Illustration] THE STORY OF WOOL CHAPTER I A MYSTERIOUS TELEGRAM Donald Clark glanced up from his Latin grammar and watched his father as he tore open the envelope of a telegram and ran his eye over its contents. Evidently the message was puzzling. Again Mr. Clark read it. Donald wondered what it could be. All the afternoon the yellow envelope had been on the table, and more than once his mind had wandered from the lessons he was preparing to speculate on the possible tidings wrapped up in that sealed packet. Not that a telegram was an unheard-of event in the family. No, his father received many; most of them, however, went to the Boston office, and the boy could not imagine what this one was doing at their Cambridge home. The moment his father entered the house Donald handed him the envelope and Mr. Clark quickly stripped it open; yet even though it now lay spread out before him the mystery it contained appeared to be unsolved. It was seldom that Donald asked questions, nevertheless he found himself wondering and wondering what it was that had brought that odd little wrinkle into his father's forehead. Donald understood that wrinkle; he had seen it many times and knew it never came unless some question arose to which it was difficult to frame an answer. As his father and he had lived alone together ever since he could remember they had grown to know each other very well, and had become the best of friends. It therefore followed that when one worried, both worried.