Old Peg's one idea was to lead the flock
home to the old farm.
By hard work we kept the sheep going in the right direction until after
three o'clock in the afternoon. By that time four or five inches of snow
had fallen. It whitened the whole country and loaded the fleeces of the
sheep. The flock had begun to lag, and the younger sheep were bleating
plaintively. We were getting worried, for the storm was increasing, and
as nearly as Addison could remember we had six miles farther to go. It
would soon be night; the forests that here bordered the road were
darkening already. We had no idea how we should get the flock on after
dark.
Old Peg soon took the matter out of our hands. She had been plodding on
moodily at the head of her large family for half an hour or more, and
coming at length to a dim cross road that entered the highway from the
woods on the north side, she turned and started up it at a headlong run.
How she ran! And how the flock streamed after her! How we ran, too, to
head her off and turn her back! Addison dashed out to one side of the
narrow forest road and I to the other. But there was brush and swamp on
both sides.
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