Among the Farmyard People | Page 5

into her stomach is turned into milk
and stored in two warm bags for the Lamb to take when he is hungry.
And how the Lambs do like this milk! It tastes so good that they can
hardly stand still while they drink it down, and they give funny little
jerks and wave their woolly tails in the air.
[Illustration: THE LAMB WITH THE LONGEST TAIL.]
There was one Lamb who had a longer tail than any of the rest, and, sad
to say, it made him rather vain. When he first came, he was too busy
drinking milk and learning to walk, to think about tails, but as he grew
older and stronger he began to know that he had the longest one.
Because he was a very young Lamb he was so foolish as to tease the
others and call out, "Baa! your tails are snippy ones!"
Then the others would call back, "Baa! Don't care if they are!"
After a while, his mother, who was a sensible Sheep and had seen much
of life, said to him: "You must not brag about your tail. It is very rude
of you, and very silly too, for you have exactly such a tail as was given
to you, and the other Lambs have exactly such tails as were given to
them, and when you are older you will know that it did not matter in
the least what kind of tail you wore when you were little." She might
have told him something else, but she didn't.
The Lamb didn't dare to boast of his tail after this, but when he passed
the others, he would look at his mother, and if he thought she wouldn't
see, he would wiggle it at them. Of course that was just as bad as
talking about it, and the other Lambs knew perfectly well what he
meant; still, they pretended not to understand.
One morning, when his mother's back was turned, he was surprised to
see that she had only a short and stumpy tail. He had been thinking so
much of his own that he had not noticed hers. "Mother," he cried, "why
didn't you have a long tail too?"

"I did have once," she answered with a sheepish smile.
"Did it get broken?" he asked in a faint little voice. He was thinking
how dreadful it would be if he should break his.
"Not exactly," said his mother. "I will tell you all about it. All little
Lambs have long tails----"
"Not so long as mine, though," said he, interrupting.
"No, not so long as yours," she replied, "but so long that if they were
left that way always they would make a great deal of trouble. As the
wool grows on them, they would catch burrs and sharp, prickly things,
which would pull the wool and sting the skin. The farmer knows this,
so when the little Lambs are about as old as you are now, he and his
men make their tails shorter."
"Oh!" cried the Lamb, curling his tail in as far between his legs as he
could, "do you mean that they will shorten my tail, my beautiful long
tail?"
"That is just what I mean," said his mother, "and you should be very
glad of it. When that is done, you will be ready to go out into the field
with me. A lot of trouble we should have if the men did not look after
such things for us; but that is what men are for, they say,--to look after
us Sheep."
"But won't they laugh at me when my tail is shorter?" asked her son.
"They would laugh at you if you wore it long. No Lamb who pretends
to be anybody would be seen in the pasture with a dangling tail. Only
wild Sheep wear them long, poor things!"
Now the little Lamb wished that he had not boasted so much. Now,
when the others passed him, he did not put on airs. Now he wondered
why they couldn't have short tails in the beginning. He asked his uncle,
an old Wether Sheep, why this was and his uncle laughed. "Why, what
would you have done all these days if things happened in that way?

What would you have had to think about? What could you have talked
about?" The little Lamb hung his head and asked no more questions.
"What do you think?" he called to a group of Lambs near by. "I'm
going to have one of the men shorten my tail. It is such a bother unless
one does have it done, and mine is so very long!"

THE WONDERFUL SHINY EGG
"CUT-CUT-CA-DAH-CUT! Cut-cut-cut-ca-dah-cut!" called the
Dorking Hen, as she strutted around the poultry-yard. She held her head
very high,