"I shall never sleep with a wolf," said Lammie-noo, "never, never," and he said this so many times, and in such an imbecile fashion that I left him, and ran up to speak to the ram who was now cropping short grass most industriously.
Silver-Hoof was a beauty—calm, sure of himself, no fighter, yet able to cope with any difficulty among the ewes, or to meet any other ram who tried to impose on him.
"Good morning," I said. "I often see you at a distance, but we don't seem to have much to say to each other."
"Ba-a-a-a!" he replied in his deep voice. "You are busy with your young master. I am occupied with my ewes and lambs. To each his duty, ram or pony."
"I've been talking to that pet down below," I said with a toss of my head toward the languishing Lammie-noo. "What do you make of him?"
The ram looked thoughtful. "I don't just know," he said. "Sometimes he acts like a foolish creature, sometimes like a wise one. He is a lamb with a past, but he can't recall it. Now my great-grandfather told my great-aunt's mother that——" and he went on with such a long story about old sheep who used to see things in the heaven and on the earth, and who acted strangely and waggled their heads, that I became most extremely bored. I backed and backed, and he kept on talking and staring out at the lake and not looking at me, until I finally got behind a clump of alders. Then I went discreetly toward the house, and he wandered on till he put himself to sleep and sank on the ground.
My young master had just waked up. I watched him running down to the lake with the other children. He did not seem to mind the cool air now. He was getting hardened. How much better this was for him than the great heat of some summer places I had been in.
Bingi was up in the kitchen garden pulling carrots, so I trotted up beside him and stepping carefully between the rows of vegetables took little carrots by the top, shook the earth off and dropped them in his basket.
This pleased him so much that I ventured to draw one between my teeth instead of putting it in the basket.
This pleased him still more, and he laughed so heartily that Chippie Sore-Feet came hobbling over the ground, and sitting on his hind legs begged for one, too.