"Everybody understands, or ought to understand, how sheep are washed.
A small yard is built on the bank of a stream adjacent to a deep
place. One side of which is open to the water, and into which the
flock is crowded. The washers take their places in the water, where it
is three or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and
tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation by the way,
that they do not seem altogether to enjoy), to wash the dirt and gum
from their fleeces. On such occasions, it is regarded as a lawful
thing, a standing and ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider,
who may happen to indulge his curiosity by stopping to look on, into
the stream. If he is verdant, he will be very likely to be inveigled
into the yard, and in an unguarded moment, be made to take an
involuntary dive, head foremost into the water.

"A few rods above the place in which my father washed his sheep, was
an old dam, the apron of which remained, and beneath which was a basin
some five or six feet in depth, and thirty or forty feet in diameter,
filled of course with water. On one occasion, a man who was employed
to catch the sheep, was one of those shiftless, good-natured, lazy
fellows, to be found in almost every neighborhood, who prefer smoking
and telling stories in bar-rooms to regular work, and who greatly
prefer odd jobs to consecutive labor. Tom G----was one of this genus,
full of fun and mischief, but without a particle of real malice in
his composition. As he was busy throwing sheep to the washers, a young
fellow from the neighboring village happened that way, and becoming
somewhat interested in the process, was seduced by Tom G----, inside
of the yard, to try his hand at catching and tossing in sheep. About
the second or third one he operated upon, his treacherous friend
stumbled against him, giving him a tremendous push, and with a sheep
in his arms he drove head foremost among the washers. The water was