equally, and since[Pg 15] I couldn't favor any special one, or divide myself up into four parts, I had to let them go."

[Pg 15]

"Perflyawfle," whistled Whistlebinkie through his hat.

"Whistlebinkie!" cried Mollie, reprovingly.

"Puf-fick-ly or-full," said Whistlebinkie distinctly through his little red rubber teeth.

"Well, I say we keep together in looking for them, anyhow," said Flaxilocks. "Because it's bad enough to lose the sheep without losing ourselves, and it seems to me there being four of us we can find the first sheep four times as quickly if we stick together as we could if we went alone; and that of course means that we'll find the four sheep sixteen times as quickly as we would if we went alone."

"I don't quite see that," said Bopeep.

"It's plain enough," observed Flaxilocks. "Four times four is sixteen."

[Pg 16]

[Pg 16]

"Oh, yes," said Bopeep. "I see."

"Sodwi," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I mean so—do—I," he added quickly, as he noted Mollie's frown.

So the four little folk started off in search of the missing sheep, Whistlebinkie and Flaxilocks running on ahead, and Mollie and Bopeep with their arms lovingly about each other bringing up in the rear.

"Did you ever lose the sheep before, Bopeep?" asked Mollie, after they had walked a little way in silence.

"Oh my, yes," returned Bopeep. "I'm losing them all the time. It is a part of my duty to lose them. If I didn't, you know, the nursery rhyme couldn't go on."

"And you always find them again?" Mollie put in.

"Always. That's got to happen, too. If they didn't come back and bring their tails behind them the nursery rhyme would be spoiled again."

[Pg 17]

[Pg 17]

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