SHEEP WASHING. 131 



up as it may be by other and later things, it can never be 

 forgotten. It will come drifting back on the current of 

 memory, fresh and palpable as ever. 



"Everybody understands, or ought to understand, how 

 sheep are washed. A small yard is built on the bank of 

 a stream adjacent to a deep place. One side of which is 

 open to the water, and into which the flock is crowded. 

 The washers take their places in the water, where it is three 

 or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and 

 tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation 

 by the way, that they do not seem altogether to enjoy), 

 to wash the dirt and gum from their fleeces. On such 

 occasiens, it is regarded as a lawful thing, a standing and 

 ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider, who may hap- 

 pen to indulge his curiosity by stopping to look on, into the 

 stream. If he is verdant, he will be very likely to be in- 

 veigled into the yard, and in an unguarded moment, be made 

 to take an involuntary dive, head foremost into the water. 



" A few rods above the place in which my father washed 

 his sheep, was an old dam, the apron of which remained, 

 and beneath which was a basin some five or six feet in 

 depth, and thirty or forty feet in diameter, filled of course 

 with water. On one occasion, a man who was employed 

 to catch the sheep, was one of those shiftless, good-natured, 

 lazy fellows, to be found in almost every neighborhood, who 

 prefer smoking and telling stories in bar-rooms to regular 

 work, and who greatly prefer odd jobs to consecutive labor. 

 Tom G was one of this genus, full of fun and mischief, 



