The Spartan Twins | Page 9

yawned. Lydia saw him.
"Come," she said briskly, "wash your faces! That will wake you up, if
you are still sleepy. And then I'll have a bite for you to eat, and some
bread and cheese for you to carry with you to the hills."
"Are we going to the hills?" asked Dion.
"Yes," said Melas. "To-day you must watch the sheep. Dromas has to
help me plough the corn-field. You are old enough now to look after
the flock and bring the sheep all safe home again at night. Come, move
quickly! 'Still on the sluggard hungry want attends.'"
"They were up too late," said Lydia. "If they can't wake up in the
morning they must go to bed very early every night."
When Dion and Daphne heard their Mother say that, they became at
once quite lively, and were soon washed and ready for their breakfast,
which was nothing but cold barley-cakes left over from the night before
and a drink of warm goat's milk. When they had eaten it, Daphne put
the bread and cheese which Lydia had wrapped up in a towel for their
luncheon in the front of her dress and they were ready to start.
Melas and Dromas, the shepherd, were waiting for them at the
farm-yard gate when the Twins came bounding out of the back door,
Dion with a little reed pipe in his hand and Daphne carrying a
shepherd's crook. The sheep were huddled together at the gate, waiting
to be let out.
"Be sure you keep good watch of that old black ewe," said Dromas to
the Twins as he went to open the gate. "She is a wanderer. I never saw
a sheep like her. She is always straying off by herself. Quarrelsome too.
Argos knows she has to be watched more than the others, and
sometimes when she goes off by herself and he goes after her, she just
puts her head down and butts at him like an old goat The wolves will
get her one of these days, as sure as my name is Dromas."

"Are there wolves in the hills?" asked Daphne.
"Maybe a few," answered Dromas, "but they don't usually come round
when they see the flock together, and a good dog along. You needn't be
afraid."
"I'm not afraid of anything," said Daphne proudly, and then the gate
was opened, the sheep crowded through, and Dion and Daphne with
Argos fell in behind the flock, and away they went toward the hills, to
the music of Dion's pipe, the bleating of the sheep, and the tinkling of
their bells.
The children followed the cart-path westward for some distance, and
then left it to drive the flock up the southern slope of a rocky high hill,
where the grass was already quite green in places and there was good
pasture for the sheep. It was still so early in the morning that the sun
threw long, long shadows before them, when they reached the hill
pasture, though they were then two miles from home. The pasture was
a lonely place. Even from the hill-tops there were no houses or villages
to be seen. Far, far away toward the east they could see the olive and
fig trees around their own house. On the western horizon there was a
glimpse of blue sea. In a field nearer they could barely make out two
brown specks moving slowly back and forth. They were oxen, and
Dromas was ploughing with them. It was so still that the children could
plainly hear the breathing of the sheep as they cropped the grass, and
the ripple of the little stream which spread out into a shallow river and
watered the valley below.
The hillside was bare except for shrubs and a few trees, but there were
wonderful places to play among the rocks. Dion proposed that they
play robber cave in a hollow place between two large boulders; but as
he insisted on being the robber, and Daphne wouldn't play if she
couldn't be the robber half the time, that game had to be given up.
Then Daphne said, "Come on! Let's play Apollo and Daphne! I'm
Daphne anyway, and I can run like the wind. You can be Apollo, only I
know you can't catch me! I can run so fast that even the real Apollo
couldn't catch me!"

Dion looked scared.
"Don't you know the Gods are all about us, only we can't see them?" he
demanded. "Apollo may have heard what you said, and if he should
take a notion to punish you for bragging, I guess you'd be sorry. Maybe
he'll turn you into a tree just like the other Daphne."
"Pooh," said Daphne. "I'm not afraid. I should think the Gods wouldn't
have time to listen