She had scarcely finished speaking when Farmer Green came into the pasture. And Snowball was sure that Farmer Green looked directly at him. But before Snowball could make up his mind to run, Johnnie Green came hurrying after his father, and shouting.
"Don't touch Snowball!" he called. "Don't you shear him!"
"Why not?" his father asked him.
"Because," said Johnnie, "I want to shear him myself. He belongs to me."
"Very well!" his father replied. "Now we're here we may as well catch him. And you can begin shearing him. It will probably take you all day, because you've never sheared a sheep before."
"I don't want to shear him now," said Johnnie. "I'm going fishing to-day. I'll do it to-morrow."
Then Farmer Green and Johnnie went away. And they hadn't passed the bars when a great uproar broke out. The whole flock crowded around Snowball. And everybody except him said, "Baa!"
"He laughs best who laughs last," Aunt Nancy remarked to him. "To-morrow we'll laugh best—at you!"
But Snowball stood his ground and shook his head.
"I'm not going to be sheared," he declared. "I guess you don't know what Johnnie Green's 'to-morrow' means. . . . It means 'never!'"