One chilly day, in the early spring, as Nannie was out in the fields, searching along the brooks for cresses, and under the hedges for the first violets, she met Farmer Grey, carrying a little lamb in his arms. He said he had found it in the field, curled down against its dead mother, and perishing with hunger and cold.
Seeing Nannie looking wistfully at the lamb, he said—
"If I will give you this poor little creature, will you feed it, and keep it warm, and try to raise it?"
"Oh, yes, indeed I will—thank you kindly, sir," she joyfully replied; and he put the lamb in her arms, and she wrapt it carefully in her cloak, and ran home with it.
Nannie's mother warmed some milk for the new pet, and fed him. Then she made him a nice soft bed near the fire, and before night he stopped shivering, and grew so strong that he was able to stand on his slender little legs, though rather unsteadily at first; and, the next day, he was running and playing about the house.
The children called this lamb, Snowdrop, both because he was so snowy white and delicate, and because he had been found in the early spring.
Well, Snowdrop grew and flourished, and proved himself to be a remarkably clever and lovable pet. He was very fond of the children, especially of Nannie, who was more tender and motherly toward him than her thoughtless little sister. And, next to her parents, and brothers, and Ollie, Nannie certainly loved her lamb. She fed him, washed him, played with him, and took him with her wherever she went. At night, he slept on his little bed of straw and old clothes in her chamber; and, in the morning, when he awoke, he would go tap-tapping over the floor to her bedside, put up his nose against her cheek, and cry, "Ma!" Nannie always wakened at this, and, after embracing her pet, got up and dressed directly.
One sunny May morning, as Nannie and Ollie sat before the cottage door, with their playmate, a neighbor's daughters—pretty Susan Smith and her little sister Mollie, came up, and stopped for a moment to speak to the children.