Sheep

‘WHAT ails your sister, Ben?' the fiddler asked
As they were washing at the pump one night.
‘ Pa killed her sheep to-day. Two years ago
Dogs killed a ewe and Lissy took the lamb
And kept it in a box behind the stove
And fed it milk all winter through. It growed
Up big; she called it hers. To-day when Pa
Was makin’ fence, it muzzled him, like it
Does Lissy. When he chased it off, it come
Right back. He hit it with a club — it’s dead.’
‘I’ll get my violin and play to-night,’
Was all the fiddler said. He played gay tunes
And dancing tunes and sprightly lilting songs;
He told of how he rode a circus mule,
How he cut lumber up in Michigan,
And floated down the Mississippi once,
And how he lived with hoboes on the road.
And then he took his violin again
To kind of fool with strains of ‘Money Musk.’
It was a tune to which a lamb could dance,
And Lissy, hearing, wondered if there were
Far-off green meadows where a lamb would dance
And maybe hills with tender weeds to crop,
Or if there was a leader with a bell
To lead lambs home at dusk to some old barn.
(The sound of sheep bells tinkled through her dreams
That night.) And all the while the fiddler watched
Her dark blur at the window sill above.
‘I would not have knowed you had it in you;
I thought you was a long-faced cuss,’ said Jake.
‘Laughter and tears were second cousins once,’
The fiddler said and started for the barn.