“Now, what surprise does your father have hidden under his jacket?” Mother wondered out loud as she looked out the kitchen window toward the log barn down the hill.
The three girls came running to see. Father was carrying something quite big, for his jacket would hardly reach around it. Was that a leg sticking out below? What could it be?
Naomi ran to open the door for Father, who immediately opened his jacket and laid a newborn lamb, stiff with cold, on the kitchen table.
“Get it warmed up as quickly as you can! The mother had twins last night,” he explained, “and she seemed to care for the one all right, but this one got pushed aside and nearly froze. How about some soft rags in a box? Put it here between the kitchen stove and the wall, that’ll be good and warm. After a bit, if it comes to life, we’ll see if it takes to milk in a bottle. Some do, and some don’t, but it’s worth a try.”
The girls had a cozy bed for the little, half-frozen baby lamb in no time. Throughout the morning, they watched eagerly for every stir the little thing made. An hour or so later, its wobbly head began to lift and stretch. Soon the legs were also stirring.
Mother had a bottle of warm milk ready. The bottle had a funny-looking, long nipple on it. Father had bought it in town just a few days before, just in case he might need it with “lambing” soon to start. The girls watched eagerly as Mother dipped her fingers in the warm milk and gently touched the lamb’s mouth.
What happened next seemed like a miracle to the three sisters! The little lamb began to stretch and pull his legs under him. Then he began to brace and lift himself with his wobbly back legs while he still knelt on his front ones. Mother slipped the bottle’s nipple into his mouth, and he began to suck with noisy slurps, bunting his head against Mother’s hands every few seconds.
“Look at the little fellow! He was half starved!” Mother smiled. “See how he keeps bunting now and then? That’s what they do when they nurse their mother. Maybe it makes the milk come faster, I really don’t know. It will be a job for you girls to give him his milk, and you’ll have to remember to hold tightly to the bottle, or the little rascal will knock it right out of your hands.”
When the lamb was satisfied, he tucked his legs under himself and was soon sound asleep in his warm bed behind the stove.
Father was glad for their good news when he came in for lunch. “A few days in his warm box and plenty of good milk, and he’ll be too frisky to stay in his box. We’ll have to hope the weather will be warm enough for him to go back to the sheep shed. Spring is well on the way. I heard a robin this morning, and the pussy willows are out down along the swamp road. Soon’s school’s out, Naomi, you’ll have to be our shepherdess. The other girls can help.”
“What do you mean, Daddy?” Naomi asked.
“Well, it’s a big job for a little girl,” he answered, “but you’re nine years old now, and I think you can do it. You see, the sheep can be in the pasture with the cows part of the time, but in the spring there’s not a lot of grass yet. John Anderson, our neighbor, says we can use his east meadow near his cabin. Trouble is, it’s not fenced in, and there’s wolves, foxes and even bears who fancy a lamb dinner if they can get it!
“They need someone to watch them all the time lest they stray off into the woods by themselves. Sheep get lost easy, just like the Bible says. Mollie will be a good helper for you. I notice she’s real good with the cows and sheep, knows just how to keep ’em together without being too rough. Her eyes and ears are sharper than ours. It’s a good thing we brought her along from the East when we came.”
Father smiled as he ruffled Mollie’s ears as she lay beside his chair, thumping her tail as if she understood every word he said.
Naomi looked very serious. It would be a big job to guard the sheep from wild animals. She thought about David who had watched his father’s sheep when still a boy. God had helped him, and she knew He would help her too.
Helen squeezed Naomi’s hand under the tablecloth. “I’ll help you too,” she whispered.
“Next Saturday Bob and I are going to shear the sheep. That’ll be something you won’t want to miss,” Daddy said.
“Does it hurt the sheep?” the girls asked anxiously.
“Not really,” Father answered. “I’m sure it frightens them, but just like the Bible says, ‘A sheep before her shearers is dumb,’ which means they don’t cry out at all. Let’s read Isaiah chapter fifty-three for our reading today. You girls listen to what God says about our being like sheep that go astray and what God says about the Lord Jesus suffering as the Lamb of God when He was the sacrifice for our sins.”
Father took his Bible, and as he read Isaiah chapter fifty-three, the girls especially noticed verses four through seven:
“Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.”
When Saturday and sheep-shearing time came, they thought of those verses again. They watched with wide-open eyes as Uncle Bob quickly turned the sheep to be sheared onto its side.
“Naomi, you can help. Come here and sit on her shoulders to help hold her still. Think you can do this?”
The sheep made no sound as Father began to quickly clip away its heavy wool with a pair of hand clippers. In no time at all, a coat of wool was completely cut away and a strange-looking, nearly-naked sheep was allowed to scamper to its feet. After a shake or two, the sheep trotted away in nothing but its skin!
Before the girls could pity the sheep too much, Father assured them that the wool would soon grow again, and with the mild spring weather the sheep would not suffer, but actually be more comfortable.
After the sheep shearing was over, the woods were often ringing with the sounds of sawing and chopping down trees for building Aunt Sue and Uncle Bob’s house. Even the girls helped by peeling the big logs with a curved sharp blade with a handle on both ends. Even Peggy Jean sometimes sat on a big log, pulling the peeler toward herself to strip the bark from the clean white logs. Most of the time she watched the bigger girls, for they could do it much faster.
Many of the logs were pulled to the sawmill by Queenie and Jenny and came back as loads of trim, fresh lumber.
Soon the woods were echoing with the sounds of hammering, and a lovely new home down by the lake was growing before their eyes.
The grass seemed to turn green overnight after a warm spring rain. The frogs were tuning up their chorus in the pond behind the barn when Naomi and Mollie began taking the sheep out each day to enjoy Mr. Anderson’s grassy meadow. One day seemed much like another, but it helped when Helen came too, when Mother didn’t need her at home. Then they could tell stories and play games, and the time passed quickly. They discovered interesting bird nests, lovely pink and yellow lady’s slippers and jack-in-the-pulpits, but they never forgot to watch the sheep.
One day when Naomi was there alone, it was almost time to return home when she made a discovery. A mother sheep had just given birth to a pair of twins. How dear they were — but those wobbly legs! How was she going to get them home? Surely they could not walk that far.
Mollie had sniffed at them approvingly, but then trotted away to round up the rest of the flock for home. There was only one thing she could do, Naomi decided. Carefully, she picked up both lambs and balanced one on each shoulder, holding firmly to their front legs. Trusting Mollie to bring the rest of the flock, she started homeward, the ram trotting on one side and the mother ewe on the other, giving little bleats and nudging her nose against Naomi! Looking back now and then, she saw the flock was following her, with Mollie faithfully watching for any stragglers.
How good it was to reach home safely and to hear Mother and Father’s words of praise and encouragement!
As she grew older, Naomi loved to think of the Good Shepherd who takes every one of His sheep safely home to glory, bearing them on His shoulders with rejoicing!