Miles
McGregor couldn’t believe what he saw.
He and his brothers, Maxwell and Monroe, were tending their sheep. They owned the largest sheep farm on
Scotland’s Shetland Islands. It was
starting to rain, but rain was common there.
What was definitely not common
was that, as they got wet, their sheep and horses were starting to shrink. Usually, wool shrinks (you know you’re not
supposed to wash woolen things in water, but you should have them dry cleaned
instead) but never the sheep themselves!
The horses seemed to stop shrinking when they got down to pony size, but
not the sheep. Some of the lambs were
now so small he could carry them in his pocket.
People everywhere loved warm Shetland wool sweaters. How would they ever be able to shear enough
wool from these tiny creatures to make a decent living?
Miles
phoned his neighbors, whom he discovered were having the same problem. Something had to be done, and right away! This had never happened before to their
knowledge and nobody had a solution.
They decided to search the internet for an answer. Miles typed in “My sheep are shrinking” on
his computer and, strangely enough, there were no responses. They were on their own.
Maxwell
suggested that they bring them inside their house so they wouldn’t get any
wetter. Bad idea! A small house doesn’t comfortably hold
several hundred sheep, even small ones.
Every room was packed full so there was no privacy at all and the noise
and the smell of all their wet coats was horrible. There was no way to sleep with sheep in their
beds because they tossed and turned all night and tried to hog the covers. They couldn’t have a hot meal since a couple
of sheep decided to take up residence in the oven. They couldn’t even bathe because there were
sheep in the tub, too. And worst of all,
living outside, none of them were potty trained.
In
the morning the three brothers woke up all cramped because they had slept on
the floor, curled up between the sheep.
They stretched their arms and legs and felt a little better. Monroe said, “Maybe if we stretch the sheep,
they’ll get back to their original size.
It’s worth a try.” They each
grabbed a sheep and began gently pulling and kneading their muscles. The sheep, who had never had a massage
before, loved it and several kept butting back in line for more until some
fights started. The brothers finally
stretched all the sheep and fell asleep exhausted. It seemed to work, but unfortunately, when
they woke up the next morning, the sheep were all small again.
Miles
had always been interested in science and chemistry and kept a small laboratory
in the house. After herding the sheep
out of there, he started working on something to make them full sized again. He tried many experiments and had many
failures. He was about to give up when
he had a flash of genius! What if he
could keep the sheep dry even if they were out in the rain? Back to the beakers and bell jars he went. He mixed several solutions until he came up
with what he hoped would be the answer to their problem. Of course, there were a couple of explosions en route to the final concoction, but
fortunately they were minor.
He
asked Maxwell and Monroe to bring one wet sheep into his laboratory. He sprayed it thoroughly with his solution
and—nothing happened! What a disappointment, but a true scientist
never gives up. He asked his brothers to
find a sheep that hadn’t yet gotten wet and shrunk and to bring it to him. He sprayed it thoroughly and let it dry. He then asked them to soak it with
water. They did and again, nothing
happened, but this time that was a good thing.
The sheep didn’t shrink. It stayed the same size! He had made the sheep waterproof.
Miles’ formula became the hottest thing that had happened on the Shetland Islands for
years. It wouldn’t bring animals that
had already shrunk back to their old size, but if you sprayed it on a newborn
lamb it would never shrink. It probably
would have worked on the horses, too, but people had already fallen in love
with the little horses which they called Shetland ponies. They were especially popular at children’s
birthday parties.