Then he rose to his feet, and looked around for the
gambolling sheep, but found, they were gone he couldn't tell where: so
he threw himself down in the deepest despair, bemoaning his strange
unaccountable loss, and the horrible beating he'd get from the Boss,
when at night he went home with his sad tale of woe. He was sure he
would never have courage to go."
The sad tale so pathetically and ingenuously told melted the already
simmering heart of the hearer, who counselled tranquillity and
philosophy in the words
"Let them alone and they'll come home,"
and jocularly added, as he saw a ray of hope lighting up the eye of the
boy, like the first rays of the sun seen through a fog,
"And bring their tails behind them."
The brilliant idea of their tails coming behind them instead of before
them tickled the risibilities of the sympathizing friends, and for a few
moments the woods echoed to their responsive mirth.
The laugh did them good. The poet perceived instantly he had a theme
upon which to build his verse, and hastily bidding BOB "good-by," he
flew exultingly to his paternal abode, rushed up the garret stairs,
seized his goose-quill, and amid the tumultuous beatings of his
over-charged heart and throbbing brain jotted down on the instant, in
all the enthusiasm of poetic fervor, the incident that had fallen under
his inspired observation.
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