The Song of Lambert. Mazo de la Roche

      The Song of Lambert

       THE SONG OF LAMBERT

       by

       Mazo de la Roche

       Illustrated by Eileen A. Soper

       This book is copyright in all countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention

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      Lambert was a lamb. He was not only a very pretty lamb but he was different from every other lamb in all the world because he could sing. His twin sister was the first to discover this and the discovery so greatly excited her that she leaped and gambolled for joy. The two of them had wandered a short way from their mother, to a corner of the meadow where there was a hawthorn tree in bloom and some briar rose bushes in bud. Their mother did not like this part of the field because the rose thorns got into her wool and tore it. She had given the twins strict orders to keep away from this corner and now, when she raised her yellow eyes from the tender grass she was munching and saw her twins sporting in the forbidden corner, she gave a loud ‘baa’ of annoyance. She bundled herself to where she saw her best friend, another fat woolly ewe, and said to her,—‘Just look at those twins of mine ! Three times I have told them to keep away from those briars and there they are—playing right among them! They will come back to me in a pretty state. There are not only thorns in that part of the field but there are burrs too. I have a good mind to punish them.’ And she gave another baa, even more annoyed than the first.

      The way she punished the twins was this. She would trot towards them, with a very angry look in her yellow eyes, and when she reached them she would bunt first one and then the other with the top of her hard hard head. But she bunted them so gently and their wool was so thick that they were not at all hurt. Still they knew they were being punished, and so their feelings were hurt. They would both begin to bleat,—‘Maa-Maa!’ and snuggle up to her, and as her heart was just as tender as her skull was hard, she would fondle them gently with her woolly nose and end by giving them a suck from her warm pink udder.

      But now she was very much annoyed, and she said to her friend, Clara,—‘Never, never, have I had such disobedient lambs. There is scarcely an hour in the day but they are doing something naughty. I have a good mind to punish them severely.’

      ‘Now, Bertha,’ said her friend, in a soothing voice, ‘you must not worry too much about your lambs. Have you ever before had twins?’

      ‘No, indeed,’ bleated Bertha, ‘and I hope I never shall again. They are too troublesome.’

      ‘Bah,’ said her friend. ‘Twins are no more trouble than other lambs. In fact, that little black lamb of mine is quite a handful. They tell me he will grow up to be a Black Sheep but I don’t believe a word of it. I’m very fond of him.’ And she trotted off, in search of her little black lamb.

      The twins were having a joyful time in the corner of the meadow where the hawthorn tree was in flower and the briar bushes in bud. They did not even notice the dry burrs clinging to the burdocks. They did not even hear the bleat of their mother as she searched for them. They could see horses in the field beyond and longed to go in and play with them. They saw a crow sitting on the fence and kicked up their heels at him. Then Lambert discovered that dandelions were good to eat. No sooner had he eaten a dandelion than he nibbled a rosebud. A feeling of joy went through all his white woolly body. On that spring morning the sky was very blue, and there were round white clouds moving across it, rather like a flock of sheep. Lambert could not understand why he felt so full of joy. He did not try to understand. He just lifted up his voice and sang. It was a small song but so pleasing to the ear that an old grey mare in the field beyond the fence came and looked over it, just to see who the singer was. She had a wisp of grass in her mouth, so that she mumbled as she said:

      ‘That’s a very pretty song, little fellow.’ Lambert did not reply. Indeed he was so full of joy in his song that he did not even hear what was said to him. But his twin spoke up proudly. ‘He is my brother,’ she said. ‘We are twins. His name is Lambert and mine is Ethel.’

      ‘And where did you get such odd names?’ asked the mare.

      ‘The farmer’s boy,’ answered Ethel. ‘He has named us all—every lamb and ewe in the meadow. Have you a name?’

      ‘My name is Bessie,’ said the mare, but she did not speak proudly because she had had this name for thirty years and had quite forgotten how she came by it.

      She munched the wisp of grass, then swallowed it. She said,—‘Thirty years, off and on, have I been in this field, yet never before have I heard a lamb sing. I have heard birds sing. I have heard the brook sing. I have heard human beings do what they call singing, but never a lamb. And I will say that it is the prettiest song I ever have heard.’

      All this while Lambert went on singing. He stood firmly on his four woolly legs and raised his woolly little face to heaven as he sang. He looked exactly like a lamb in a stained glass window in a cathedral. But to his mother, who at that moment discovered him, he looked no more than her naughty disobedient son.

      ‘Lambert, come here, this instant minute,’ she bleated. She always said this instant minute when she was particularly annoyed. ‘Lambert, stop making that silly noise, and come to Mother, this instant minute.’

      Lambert went right on singing but Ethel ran to her mother and said,—‘Ma-ma, just listen! Lambert is singing. That old mare in the next field says that Lambert is singing and she ought to know.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ bleated the ewe. ‘I say he is very naughty. He has got burrs in his best little suit and I dare say has been eating things that will make him sick.’

      She hurried to where Lambert stood singing beneath the hawthorn tree.

      ‘You are a naughty lamb,’ she bleated and she bunted him so hard that he fell. But he was so woolly and the grass was so soft that he was not at all hurt. And she did not intend that he should be hurt. She simply wanted him to know that he was being punished.

      Then she set to work to pull the burrs out of his soft fleece. When she had finished with him she attended to Ethel with the same care. At last, with the twin lambs on either side of her, she ambled back to the flock where they rested in the shade.

      ‘Goodness, how hot it is!’ she bleated to her friend Clara. ‘I am tired out between heat and worry. Surely it is enough to be the mother of twin lambs without them getting into mischief every