XXV. Sheep Sculpture 



THERE are no such sheep as those that take 

 the prizes at the Fall Fairs and have their 

 pictures printed in the papers. I never be- 

 lieved that such sheep really existed, "so 

 large and smooth and round," and now I know that 

 they do not. At least they do not exist as a natural 

 product of the farm. They are just as much a 

 manufactured article as the little woolly "baa-baas" 

 in the baby's Noah's Ark. I know this, because I 

 saw a show sheep manufactured. When Mary Belle 

 was sold it was stipulated by the buyer that she 

 was to be clipped before being delivered. In my in- 

 nocence of the guile of the show-ring I thought that 

 this meant that she was to be trimmed a little around 

 the edges so that her little fleece wouldn't look too 

 ragged and ill-kept. When an experienced showman 

 came to do the clipping, I naturally stuck aroimd to 

 see what would happen. I knew Mary Belle was a 

 pure-bred sheep of some kind, but I thought it 



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