By Maud Lindsay
The shepherd was sick and the shepherd's wife looked out from her door with anxious eyes. "Who will carry the sheep to the pasture lands today?" she said to her little boy Jean.
"I will," cried Jean, "I will. Mother, let me."
Jean and his father and mother lived long ago in a sunny land across the sea, where flowers bloom, and birds sing, and shepherds feed their flocks in the green valleys. Every morning, as soon as it was light, Jean's father was up and away with his sheep. He had never missed a morning before, and the sheep were bleating in the fold as if to say, "Don't forget us today."
The sheep were Jean's playfellows. There was nothing he liked better than to wander with them in the pleasant pastures, and already they knew his voice and followed at his call.
"Let the lad go," said his old grandfather. "When I was no older than he I watched my father's flock."
Jean's father said the same thing, so the mother made haste to get the little boy ready.
"Eat your dinner when the shadows lie straight across the grass," she said as she kissed him good-bye.
"And keep the sheep from the forest paths," called his sick father.
"And watch, for it is when the shepherd is not watching that the wolf comes to the flock," said the old grandfather.