THE RED COW 



were a few little things — still it didn't matter — they 

 wouldn't show when he got done. After these cryp- 

 tic remarks he took a couple of carding combs — I 

 am not sure that that is the right name, but they 

 were the kind of thing I used to see in my youth in 

 the hands of old pioneer women who carded their 

 own wool. They look like curry-combs. They are 

 made of wire teeth, set in leather on a wooden frame. 

 They look and feel something like a cockle burr. 

 Anyway the showman took these instruments and 

 started at Mary Belle's fleece. The process was 

 much like combling a particularly snarly head of 

 hair and was received in the same spirit. The lamb 

 jumped and called for mother, but as I did not re- 

 gard the operation any more cruel than many a 

 hair-combing I had witnessed I did not protest. 

 With these carding combs the lamb's fleece was all 

 pulled out so that she suddenly looked twice her 

 usual size. But there was no improvement in her 

 appearance. In fact she looked shaggier than ever. 

 But presently her wool was all pulled out on end, and 

 into separate strands, and the real work of trimming 

 or clipping was ready to begin. 



Taking an especially sharp pair of shears, the 

 showman tried their edge on his thumb in quite the 



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