The lamb let the toad put a piece of grass in his mouth.
After a while the toad asked for a little stick. "The flies and mosquitoes annoy me terribly," he said. "If only I had a little stick I could wave it about over my head and frighten them away. It is very bad for any one in my weak, nervous condition to be bothered by flies and mosquitoes." The lamb let the toad have a little stick to wave over his head.
At last the lamb and the toad drew near to the palace of the king. The king's daughter was leaning out of the window watching for them. The toad dug his feet into the lamb's sides, pulled hard on the piece of the grass in the lamb's mouth and waved the little stick about over the lamb's head. "Go on, horse," he said and the king's daughter heard him. She laughed and laughed, and when all the rest of the people in the palace saw the toad arriving mounted on the lamb's back and driving him like a horse they laughed too. The lamb went meekly home to his pasture and from that day to this when one wishes to speak of meekness one says "as meek as a lamb."
VI
Why the Tiger and the Stag
Fear Each Other
nce upon a time there was a large handsome stag with great branching horns. One day he said to himself, "I am tired of having no home of my own, and of just living anywhere. I shall build me a house." He searched on every hill, in every valley, by every stream, and under all the trees for a suitable place. At last he found one that was just right. It was not too high, nor too low, not too near a stream and not too far away from one, not under too thick trees and not away from the trees out under the hot sun. "I am going to build my house here," he said, and he began to clear a place for it at once. He worked all day and did not go away until night.