FullReads

But soon the sun began to sink over the hill-tops, and she knew she must take her sheep home before night overtook them.

She did not tell her mother of her misfortune, for she feared the old shepherdess would scold her, and Bo-Peep had fully decided to seek for the tails and find them before she related the story of their loss to anyone.

Each day for many days after that Little Bo-Peep wandered about the hills seeking the tails of her sheep, and those who met her wondered what had happened to make the sweet little maid so anxious. But there is an end to all troubles, no matter how severe they may seem to be, and

It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray
Unto a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side.
All hung on a tree to dry!

The little shepherdess was overjoyed at this discovery, and, reaching up her crook, she knocked the row of pretty white tails off the tree and gathered them up in her frock. But how to fasten them onto her sheep again was the question, and after pondering the matter for a time she became discouraged, and, thinking she was no better off than before the tails were found, she began to weep and to bewail her misfortune.

But amidst her tears she bethought herself of her needle and thread.

“Why,” she exclaimed, smiling again, “I can sew them on, of course!” Then

She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye
And ran o’er hill and dale, oh.
And tried what she could
As a shepherdess should,
To tack to each sheep its tail, oh.

But the very first sheep she came to refused to allow her to sew on the tail, and ran away from her, and the others did the same, so that finally she was utterly discouraged.

She was beginning to cry again, when the same old woman she had before met came hobbling to her side and asked,

“What are you doing with my cat tails?”

“Your cat tails!” replied Bo-Peep, in surprise; “what do you mean?”

“Why, these tails are all cut from white pussycats, and I put them on the tree to dry. What are you doing with them?”

“I thought they belonged to my sheep,” answered Bo-Peep, sorrowfully; “but if they are really your pussy-cat tails, I must hunt until I find those that belong to my sheep.”

“My dear,” said the old woman, “I have been deceiving you; you said you knew all about your sheep, and I wanted to teach you a lesson. For, however wise we may be, no one in this world knows all about anything. Sheep do not have long tails–there is only a little stump to answer for a tail. Neither do rabbits have tails, nor bears, nor many other animals. And if you had been observing you would have known all this when I said the sheep would be wagging their tails behind them, and then you would not have passed all those days in searching for what is not to be found. So now, little one, run away home, and try to be more thoughtful in the future. Your sheep will never miss the tails, for they have never had them.”

And now

Little Bo-Peep no more did weep;
My tale of tails ends here.
Each cat has one,
But sheep have none;
Which, after all, is queer!