128 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
old familiar rhyme wherever Mary went her little 
lamb would go. But there was a little rift within 
the lute which by and by would widen till it made 
the music mute. The lamb was excessively playful 
and frisky, but its mistress had her little lessons 
and duties to attend to, and the lamb couldn’t 
understand it, and often after frisking and jumping 
about to challenge the other to a fresh race in vain 
it would run away to get up a race or game of 
some sort with the youngest of the dogs. The 
dogs were responsive, so that they were quite 
happy together. 
We kept eight dogs at that time; two were 
pointers, all the others just the common dog of the 
country, a smooth-haired animal about the size of 
a collie. Like all dogs allowed to exist in their own 
way, they formed a pack, the most powerful one 
being their leader and master. They spent most 
of their time lying stretched dog-fashion in the 
sun in some open place near the house, fast asleep. 
They had little to do except bark at strangers 
approaching the house and to hunt off the cattle 
that tried to force their way through the fences 
into the plantation. They would also go off on 
hunting expeditions of their own. Strange play- 
mates and companions for Libby, as she was 
named, the pretty pet lamb with fleece as white 
as snow; yet so congenial did she find the dogs’ 
society that by and by she passed her whole time 
with them, day and night. When they came to. 
the door to bark and whine and wag their tails to 
