ONE day a wolf and a lamb happened
to
come at the same time to drink
from a
brook that ran down the side of
the mountain.
The Wolf wanted very much
to eat the
Lamb, but meeting her as he did,
face to
face, he thought he must find some
excuse for
doing so.
So he began by trying to
pick a quarrel;
and said angrily,---
"How dare you come to my
brook, and
muddy the water so that I cannot
drink it?
What do you mean?"
The Lamb, very much alarmed,
said gently,
"I do not see how it can be that
I have spoiled
the water. You stand higher
up the stream,
and the water runs from you to
me, not from
me to you."
"Be that as it may," said
the Wolf, "you
are a rascal all the same, for
I have heard that
last year you said bad things of
me behind my
back."
"Oh, dear Mr. Wolf," cried
the poor Lamb,
"that could not be, for a year
ago I was not
born."
Finding it of no use to
argue any more, the
Wolf began to snarl and show his
teeth.
Coming closer to the Lamb, he said,
"You
little wretch, if it was not you,
it was your
father; so it's all the same,"
and he pounced
upon the poor Lamb, and ate her
up.
When people mean to do bad
and cruel
things, they can easily make excuses
for it.
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