"Then I don't see why you feel so badly about it," said Mollie.

"And I only get five cents a quart."

"I have to," replied Bopeep. "That's part of my business, too. I sometimes wish old Mother Goose hadn't employed me to look after the sheep at all, because it keeps me crying all the time, and I don't find crying very pleasant. Why, do you know, I have been in this sheep-losing business for nearly[Pg 18] two hundred years now, and I've cried about seventy gallons of tears every year. Just think of that. That means fourteen thousand gallons of tears, and I only get five cents a quart, which doesn't more than pay my dressmaker's bills. I asked my employers some years ago to let me have an assistant to do the crying for me, but they wouldn't do it, which I think was very mean, don't you?"

[Pg 18]

"Yes, I do," said Mollie. "I should think just losing the sheep was hard enough work for a little girl like you to attend to."

"That's what I think—but dear me, where are Whistlebinkie and Flaxilocks going?" said Bopeep. "They mustn't go that way. The first place we must go to is the home of the Unwiseman."

"The what?" demanded Mollie.

"The Unwiseman. He's an unwiseman who doesn't know anything," explained Bopeep. "The rules require that we go to him[Pg 19] first and ask him if he knows where the sheep are. He'll say he doesn't know, and then we'll go on to the little old woman who lives under the hill. She'll know where they are, but she'll tell us wrong. Hi! Whistlebinkie and Flaxilocks! Turn off to the left, and stop at that little red house under the oak tree."

[Pg 19]

"There isn't any little red house under the oak tree," said Mollie.

"Oh, yes, there is," said Bopeep. "Only you've got to know it's there before you can see it. The Unwiseman lives there."

Sat in the doorway trying to smoke a pipe filled with soapsuds.

Whistlebinkie and Flaxilocks did as they were told, and, sure enough, in a minute there appeared a little red house under the oak tree just as Bopeep had said. Mollie was delighted, it was such a dainty little house, with its funny gables and a roof made of strawberry icing. The window-panes were shining like silver, and if Bopeep was not mistaken were made of sugar.[Pg 20] But funnier still was the Unwiseman 

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