She was good to him. She brought him juicy turnips, and he grew big and fat and strong. One day she let him wander in the road, and at once he thought of the forbidden front. The little gate was shut and latched, but through the picket fence he could see the shining of the flowers, the sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies. So he waited and he waited and he waited, till at last that careless, lazy, good-for-nothing butcher boy forgot to shut and latch the little gate. Then in crept Woollymoolly, and all the sunny day, while his mistress forgot him in her household work, he gobbled up the sweet-peas and the sunflowers and the gold and purple pansies.
At last his mistress thought of him, and went to bring him in. She searched up the road and down the road and back and forth across the road, and at last she found him gobbling in her garden. "Oh, you wicked, wicked lamb!" she cried. "You have eaten all my flowers. You have pulled and smashed and trampled all my pretty garden. You have greedily gobbled up my sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple pansies."
The next day came the careless, lazy, good-for-nothing butcher boy again, but this time when he went he carried with him in his cart the lamb who would not do as he was told. "I have done with him!" his mistress cried.
What happened to him afterwards I will not say, though maybe you can guess. At any rate, he never disobeyed again, nor walked amongst the sweet-peas and the sunflowers and the gold and purple pansies.
THISTLE-MOTHER
Thistle-mother looked up and saw that the winter was over, for the sun was creeping higher and higher in the sky, and the birds were practising their spring songs. So, unfolding her arms, she spread them over the ground, and began to push herself up into the warm air.
Her home was on the roadside, where grasses and weeds grew so closely together that it was hard to find room. As she grew, they began to complain. "Don't push so," they cried. "And oh! how horribly prickly you are! You are scratching us dreadfully."
"I am very sorry," she said, "but I really cannot help it. I seem to grow like this without knowing it."
"Well, you might at least go somewhere else to live, where you will not disturb so many people," they grumbled. But this was just what she could not do. She went on growing; as the others shrank back from her prickly arms she could look over their heads.