Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17): Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy TalesVarious
General
Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17): Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales
Various
Children's literature
Soon afterward, through his old master's influence, Andy was taken to
London, and by dint of much effort remedied many of the defects of his
early education. Then, marrying his cousin, Onoah, who had shared his
mother's cabin in the old days, and to save whom from a desperado Andy
had, this time knowingly, braved great personal danger, our hero settled
down to the enjoyment of a life such as he had never dreamed of in his
humble days.
THE GREEDY SHEPHERD
Once upon a time there lived in the South Country two brothers, whose
business it was to keep sheep. No one lived on that plain but shepherds,
who watched their sheep so carefully that no lamb was ever lost.
There was none among them more careful than these two brothers, one of
whom was called Clutch, and the other Kind. Though brothers, no two men
could be more unlike in disposition. Clutch thought of nothing but how
to make some profit for himself, while Kind would have shared his last
morsel with a hungry dog. This covetous mind made Clutch keep all his
father's sheep when the old man was dead, because he was the eldest
brother, allowing Kind nothing but the place of a servant to help him in
looking after them.
For some time the brothers lived peaceably in their father's cottage,
and kept their flock on the grassy plain, till new troubles arose
through Clutch's covetousness.
One midsummer it so happened that the traders praised the wool of
Clutch's flock more than all they found on the plain, and gave him the
highest price for it. That was an unlucky thing for the sheep, for after
that Clutch thought he could never get enough wool off them. At shearing
time nobody clipped so close as Clutch, and, in spite of all Kind could
do or say, he left the poor sheep as bare as if they had been shaven.
Kind didn't like these doings, but Clutch always tried to persuade him
that close clipping was good for the sheep, and Kind always tried to
make him think he had got all the wool. Still Clutch sold the wool, and
stored up his profits, and one midsummer after another passed. The
shepherds began to think him a rich man, and close clipping might have
become the fashion but for a strange thing which happened to his flock.
The wool had grown well that summer. He had taken two crops off the
sheep, and was thinking of a third, when first the lambs, and then the
ewes, began to stray away; and, search as the brothers would, none of
them was ever found again. The flocks grew smaller every day, and all
the brothers could find out was that the closest clipped were the first
to go.
Kind grew tired of watching, and Clutch lost his sleep with vexation.
The other shepherds, to whom he had boasted of his wool and his profits,
were not sorry to see pride having a fall. Still the flock melted away
as the months wore on, and when the spring came back nothing remained
with Clutch and Kind but three old ewes. The two brothers were watching
these ewes one evening when Clutch said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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