"That's the way they do. They run races and play 'stump-the-leader' and 'hi-spy' and 'ring-around-the-rosy.' Why, Miss Janet, if you were out here a little later on, you would think it was _recess_ all the time." "I wish I might be," said Janet. "A lamb likes to be on the go," he continued. "Sheep really ain't lively enough for a lamb, so he has to go off and have his own fun. He 'll gallop around with a troop of other lambs and won't stop except long enough to go home for dinner." "I don't see," said Janet, "how a lamb can go away like that and ever find his mother again, in such a crowd. They all look alike." "That's easy enough. Every sheep's voice is keyed up to a different pitch; they all sound different some way or another. And every lamb has a little voice of his own." "Yes, I've noticed that. But I did n't know there was any object in it. Or that they knew each other's voices." "Oh, certainly they do. When a lamb gets hungry he whisks right around and runs into the flock and starts up his tune. She'll hear it and she'll start up too; and that way they'll keep signaling to each other. A lamb will run into a crowd of a thousand sheep and go right to his mother. When he has arrived, maybe she will smell him to make sure; and if he is all right, why--then it is all right." "Then they don't ever go by looks, even when they're acquainted." "Oh, no. They are different from people. They are not like you that know all the children by sight and don't have to call the roll. When a lamb wants to find a sheep, he just calls and she answers 'Present.'" Steve Brown did not seem to lose sight of the fact that he was addressing his remarks to a school-teacher. While something of humor passed over his countenance at times, his attitude toward her was mainly sober and earnest. Janet, all absorbed in the subject of lambs, was in quite as serious a mood. She waited for him to continue; but he was not one to keep on indefinitely without questioning, not presuming, evidently, to know how much further she might be interested. "She answers 'Present,'" repeated Janet. "Well, then; while they are answering each other, does she go to the lamb or does the lamb go to her?" "Most likely they'll go to each other, and meet halfway. You see, that's the quickest way, When a lamb is hungry he wants his dinner right off." "Then they are not any trouble in that way at all, are they!" "Well--it's all easy enough after they have learned each other's voices. But at first they don't know that, and it takes them a little time to get it into their minds. That's when a herder has got trouble to keep things from getting mixed up. And if she has twins she has got to learn them both by heart." "That's so--she would, would n't she!" "Oh, yes. And twins learn to know each other, too. That's so they can go home to dinner together. For of course if she let one of them come alone it would n't be fair." "Then sheep know that much!"