So out to the pasture lot they went, running gayly along the narrow roadway past the garden.
John led them up the hill, over stones and through briars and he wouldn't stop for anything till the very top by the fence was reached. Once there he looked around as though hunting for something.
"Why—where—?" he said in a puzzled way.
In the meantime Mary Jane stepped up close to the rocky wall bordering the pasture to pick some wild flowers she saw in bloom there. And as she reached into the bushes to pick the flowers, her hand brushed against something furred—and soft—and warm.
"Oh!" she cried drawing her hand back in a jiffy, "it's alive!"
John pushed into the bushes and there discovered what he was looking for—his best pet of all, his wee lamb. He caught firm hold of the soft wool at the back of the lamb's neck and pulling hard dragged the shy little creature out for inspection.
"Oh, I didn't know it was a lamb!" exclaimed Mary Jane happily. "I'm not afraid of a lamb, I'm not. I had a pet lamb too at grandpa's farm."
John and Mary Jane sat down on the nearest rock and fell to comparing notes about the lamb she had had and the lamb before them, and so busy were they that they failed to notice the approach of John's father with a wheelbarrow.
"Anybody want a ride?" he asked. "And Alice, if any big girl like you says she wants one, she's going to be fooled. But if any people the size of John and Mary Jane want one they'd better get in quick, because mother has just given the signal for dinner and that means come and wash your hands this minute."
John settled himself in the front of the barrow with his toes hanging over the wheel while his father lifted Mary Jane on just behind. And with Alice for an escort the party went back to the house.