The Orphan

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 25

The Orphan

It was about sunrise on an August morning when a little lamb awakened in a barren field crackling with frozen snow. The air was bitter, and although the sun was shyly peeping over the horizon the very brightness seemed to emphasise the cold.

The woolly little creature stood up and shook himself, then turned with a feeble bleat to sniff at the body of his dead mother, by whose side he had nestled through the night. He was weak for want of food and very cold as well. Receiving no response from the heap huddled on the ground, he began to look around him at the other sheep and lambs more fortunate than himself. With tottering steps he moved toward a busy mother who was bustling down the slope with her little one, in search of food. When she stopped he attempted to share the other lamb's breakfast, but she would have none of him. She gave him a sharp bang with her head, sending him reeling against a tree stump. But he was valiant for all his weakness and tried twice more, with the same results. All around was bustle as the sheep began to move about and greet each other. A cold breeze came up and he crouched shivering under some bushes. 'Then he moved out into the open again and gave some pitiful bleats as if to say “Help! Help!” He was answered by a mother who had temporarily lost her lamb, and came running toward him. Great was his joy. only to be turned to despair when, discovering him to be the wrong one, she dismissed him rudely and resumed her search.

He was faint now and scarcely heard a strange sound which had a startling effect on the rest of the sheep. It was a human voice, whose owner was crossing the adjoining paddock. This strange being must suddenly have spied the halffrozen little thing standing bead down, shivering pitifully, for when something made him look up he beheld the most terrifying vision his young eyes had ever seen. Obeying instinct, he made a feeble attempt to evade the monster's clutches and follow his fellow creatures in their precipitate flight. But: two strong arms closed about him and in a moment he was lifted clear of the ground. He heard a voice murmuring strange things and amid his struggles had time to realise that this position was infinitely more comfortable than his previous one. However, he tried to escape. There was no release, and gradually he sank into a half-stupor. Unknowing, he was being borne into (he region of warm milk and straw-lined beds, but his real freedom was over for ever. It was accomplished—the gaining of a pet.—By Beryl Wall, Maraetotara.