This poor little lamb has lost its mother, and it looks cold and
famished. It is well that it has found friends who will take good care
of it, for without food and shelter it would soon perish. When it has
drunk the warm milk which Guy's mamma is coaxing it to take, she will
make a little bed for it of some nice soft hay or wool, cover it up, and
leave it in a snug, quiet place to take a nap.
Sheep and lambs love mountain and hill countries, and their pastures are
almost always on breezy uplands. The first sheep ever brought to this
continent were sent to Virginia from England in 1609. How bewildered and
unhappy the poor things must have felt on the long voyage, with the
great waves thumping against the vessel, and the wind whistling through
the sails! They must have been very glad indeed when at last they
touched land.
There is one English poet whose verses about lambs ought to be learned
by all children. We mean Wordsworth. You remember that in a recent
number of YOUNG PEOPLE we had a poem of his which was beautifully
illustrated. One of his poems is called "The Pet Lamb," and it is about
a little orphan lamb just like this one, which is cared for by a child
named Barbara. The lamb is bleating, and straining at its cord, and she
says to it:
"'Rest, little young one, rest; thou hast forgot the day
When my father found thee first in places far away.
Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none,
And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.
"'Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now;
Then I'll yoke thee to my cart, like a pony in the plough;
My playmate thou shalt be, and when the wind is cold
Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold.'"
There is another poem by Wordsworth called "The Last of the Flock,"
which is quite different from this. It is the story of a poor peasant on
the hills who had a flock of sheep which he dearly loved. He could not
bear to kill or to sell them. A time of great distress came, and there
was a scarcity of food. He went to the parish authorities, and asked for
relief for his family. This they denied, saying to him: "You are not a
poor man. You have sheep and lambs. Dispose of them." So one by one he
sold them, and it almost broke his heart to do it, and at last he had
only one lamb left. He loved his children, and did not wish them to
suffer, but to part with his cherished flock was like giving his blood
up drop by drop, and finally, as he walked on the highway, taking the
last lamb to the market, the tears ran down his face. He said,
"'And of my fifty, yesterday
I had but only one,
And here it lies upon my arm,
Alas! and I have none.
To-day I fetched it from the rock;
It is the last of all my flock.'"
Most sensible people will think that the man ought to have been glad
that he possessed sheep, which he could exchange for bread for his boys
and girls; but here and there among the children there will be some who
can understand his feeling. You would not like to part for money with a
dog, a cat, or a bird which you had taken care of, even if you wanted
money very much, and to the peasant the sheep and lambs had become
almost as dear as his children. When he sold one, he felt almost as if
he had been selling a child. As all shepherds do, he knew each sheep
from every other, and their faces did not look alike, as the faces in a
flock do to us, but each had an expression of its own--what we call
individuality.
When the lamb in the picture shall have grown too large to take his food
out of a bottle, he will crop the sweet fresh grass, and frisk about
merrily, especially if his mistress now and then tempts him with a taste
of salt in her hand. He will be very gentle, though full of play, and he
and his baby master will have fine times together. It is rather sad to
think that as time passes he will be less fond of gambolling, and will
become a stupid, grazing, dreaming old sheep, not nearly so interesting
as now when he is a little shivering orphan lamb.