ONE day a Wolf and a Lamb happened to come at the same time to drink
from a brook that ran down the side of the mountain.
The Wolf wished very much to eat the Lamb, but meeting her as he did,
face to face, he thought he must find some excuse for doing so.
So he began by trying to pick a quarrel, and said angrily: “How dare
you come to my brook and muddy the water so that I cannot drink it?
What do you mean?”
The Lamb, very much alarmed, said gently: “I do not see how it can be
that I have spoiled the water. You stand higher up the stream, and the
water runs from you to me, not from me to you.”
“Be that as it may,” said the Wolf, with a snarl, “you are a rascal all
the same, for I have heard that last year you said bad things of me
behind my back.”
“Dear Mr. Wolf,” cried the poor Lamb, “that could not be, for a year
ago I was not born; I am only six months old.”
Finding it of no use to argue any more, the Wolf began to snarl and
show his teeth. Coming closer to the Lamb, he said, “You little wretch,
if it was not you it was your father, so it’s all the same”; and he
pounced upon the poor Lamb and ate her up.