Tales; Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co., ' How's my Boy? J. C. CURTIS. Dec. 8, 1868 CURTIS'S JUNIOR READER. PART I. FABLES AND FAIRY TALES. THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. ONE hot, sultry day, a wolf and a lamb happened to come just at the same time to quench their thirst in the stream of a clear, silvery brook, that ran tumbling down the side of a rocky mountain. The wolf stood upon the higher ground, and the lamb, at some distance from him, down the current. However, the wolf, having a mind to pick a quarrel with him, asked him what he meant by disturbing the water and making it so muddy that he could not drink, and at the same time demanded satisfaction. The lamb, frightened at this threatening charge, told him, in a tone as mild as possible, that he could not conceive how that could be, since the water that he drank ran down from the wolf to him, and therefore could not be disturbed so far up the stream. 'Be that as it may,' replied the wolf, 'you are a rascal, and I have been told that you spoke ill of me, behind my back, about half a year ago.' 'Impossible,' said the lamb; 'the time you mention was before I was born.' The wolf, finding it useless to argue any longer against the truth, fell into a great passion, and drawing near to the lamb, exclaimed, 'If it was not you, it was your father, and that's all one.' So he seized the poor innocent lamb, tore it in pieces, and made a meal of it. |