Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-07-30
BEING A LAMB.
How It Behaves-Its Errors, Haps and
Mishaps.

About five minutes after the lamb il born he
70 on his feet. The unsteady earth under him
now heaves TO the right; surges up and then
down, and il whirls and its twirls with him
while he staggers and struggles, and twists one
legs around the other like q vine around q tree;
or else he spreads those members all out until
they look like the forks under q weather vane.
He tumbles down for the fftieth time, and for
the fftieth time renews the fight to secure that
footing in the great world from which only can
he reach the ife-giving milk. His mother
particularly il it Is her first-in her crazy
anxiety to help, knocks him down, steps on
MIN, and does-without leaving out possible
xception-everything she should not do, while
she leaves nearly everything undone that might
help the little fellow to get the desired nourish-
ment.
"Oh, the poor, dear little thing; isn't it too
bad, says the sympathetic stranger. 1.-THE
COMPOUNDED pair of idiots' frets the impatient
shepherd, who does not care to drive them un-
til the lamb finds milk and "gets filled up"
In half an hour his milk can is full; his sides
bulge out with a surfeit of pure article war
ranted to stand the most rigid test for admix-
ture of water. And the shepherd slowly
urges the old eve toward home the lamb goes
Keeling and rolling along like an old tar just
ashore from years voyage.
About the first error the lamb makes in life
is to mistake the shepherd or his dog for its
mother, and many are the maneuvers that
must be gone through with to make the new
arrival follow the right party. His next error
Is likely to be an attempt to walk on air when
ne comes to place where he should 60 down
hill; His ten minutes experience in life has
made him believe that all the earth is level
plain, and in broad daylight he steps off the
top of hill just as serenely as man steps off
the top landing Of the stairs in total darkness
when he is certain that the stairs are yet 20
result ia IN
man and lamb in each instance.
The lamb picks himself up, and continues
down the hill; he soon comes to the conclusion
that everything is down hill in this life and not
the hill, he still tries to continue downward,
and as result runs his nose into the ground
and looks surprised again. He now comes to
place to get up hill, and goes up just as our
man starts to go up stairs in total darkness
when he thinks the stairs are still 20 feet away.
Our lamb is now getting very suspicious. He
was pushed over and growled at for following
the dog when he thought it was his mother;
the shepherd kicked and abused him for fol-
lowing him; he tumbled down hill when he saw
nothing unusual in the looks Of the ground,
and up hill again under similar circumstances.
In this frame of mind he comes to a shadow
cast by neighboring hill. This is the most
appalling thing he has yet seen in life. He
stands in the bright sunshine; twelve inches
ahead OF him all the world is black. How shall
than going down hill, or up hill, or running
after dog that growls or man that kicks. 1t
surely looks much more frightful than any of
these things. His mother is in the shadow, and
coaxes him to come along; but he will not risk
it-he stands on the edge and bawls at the top
Of his powers. The shepherd with his big foot
comes to the rescue, and our poor lamb is lifted
from sunlight to shadow on the end of a num-
Der nine boot.
He trots along after his mother for few
NyarI d ax,I m
Is from shadow to sunlight. It looks tough;
the situation seems to present no end of diff
culties He walks across the line with fear and
trembling, only to find it very simple and easy,
and concludes that things are not SO bad as
they look. He has already begun to find out
that things which seem easy in life lead often
to disaster, and forbidding things often present
no real danger
At this time he is about one hour old; for a
whole hour he has been running his respira-
tive, circulative and locomotive powers as an
independent being, and has become quite a
lamb. Just at that instant carriage drives
rapidly along the road. His quick eye sees it;
he thinks perhaps it is his mother, and that she
Is running from danger He strikes out after
1t. 1t is wonderful what an hour has done for
hum in the way of development; he runs faster
than the shepherd, faster than his mother. and
is in imminent danger of getting under the
horses feet or the wheels of the carriage
1t is here that the dog comes in play il he
understands his business. He runs up along
side Of the lamb, pushes it over with his nose,
jumps upon it and holds it down upon the
ground with his nose until the shepherd comes
up. The shepherd takes the lamb and stands
1t upon its feet SO that it see its mother,
who has come up to within few feet He
holds it until it sees its mother ON move and
then lets it CO. The old eve ticks off the face
OF a sadder and wiser lamb. lets him have
another dose of liquid nourishment, and to-
gether they get home.
There is only one thing that is 500 times as
funny and provoking by turns as a lamb, and
that is 500 lambs together when they are about
a month old. The shepherd sits down and
watches the 500 lambs all in bunch by them
selves, playing, running and frolIcking, and he
laughs. When he has tried, and tried in vain,
to get the same 500 across a bridge or into
corral he sits down again, but he does not
laugh this time
Ayoung lamb has no way of telling which
eve is its mother and the mother only knows
which lamb is her own by the scent Hence,
while very young it is bad plan to have too
many together, for the eve may be confused
by so many lambs. or become partially indiffer-
emit, and the lamb perish for want of care
When a few weeks old, however, they know
each other by the sound of the voice. In a
band of 1000 or 5000 ewes, a eve may call her
lamb, and the lamb will answer from the other
side of the flock. They will go as straight to
each other, right through the whole band, as
they would if they were the only two animals
for mile around