The Wolf and the Lamb

On a hot summer day, a little lamb went to drink from a clear stream that ran down from the mountain. He bent over the water and began to sip the cool stream.

Just then a wolf appeared further up the stream. He was hungry, and his eyes lit up when he saw the lamb. But he did not want to simply attack; he wanted an excuse of his own making.

"Hey, you!" the wolf shouted. "How dare you muddy my water?"

The lamb lifted his head, trembling. "Sir," he said politely, "the water flows from up there to down here. You are upstream and I am downstream. There is no way I could muddy your water."

The wolf paused for a moment, then found another excuse. "Then it was you who said bad things about me last year!"

"Last year I wasn't even born," said the lamb. "I have never left my mother's side."

"Then it was your brother!" the wolf growled.

"I have no brother, sir, I am an only child."

The wolf grew angry. "If it wasn't you, it was your brother; if not your brother, your shepherd; if not your shepherd, your dog! You are all the same!" he said, and lunged at the lamb.

But at that very moment the bushes by the stream rustled and the shepherd's big dog, Blackie, leapt out. The wolf had been so busy inventing excuses that he had not noticed the dog coming closer. When he saw Blackie, he tucked his tail between his legs and ran off toward the mountain.

The lamb went back to his mother, still shaking. She licked him and said: "My child, whoever is in the wrong keeps looking for excuses to seem right. You told the truth, and that is always best. But also learn never to wander far from the flock and your friends."

From that day on, the lamb always went to the stream with the flock. The wolf watched from afar, and watched, and never found another excuse.