Samuel is a sheep. He was born on Hopper Farm in the middle of fall. Growing up everyone said how beautiful Samuel was.
“Oh what a lovely sheep.” said Mrs. Kilmer, a farmers wife from three farms down.
Everyone always spoke about him in the lightest tone, complementing his soft, white wool. Samuel was very proud.
As Samuel grew everyone continued to talk about his beauty. He would stand in the meadow and look down into the pond and view his reflection. Samuel would stand and stare for hours on end until the bell rang to come in for lunch or dinner.
One day, while gazing at his reflection in the meadow, a second reflection popped in to view.
“How beautiful!” exclaimed Samuel under his breath. He looked up to find a young sheep no older than he but in his eyes was far more beautiful. After taking a long cool drink from the pond the young lady looked up at him and smiled sweetly.
“Hello. I’m Dougy.” She said.
“Hello.” Replied Samuel. For the first time he felt shy, and he felt less than worthy. She was so beautiful!
He started to say something more but the farm bell rang alarming the time for lunch.
Some days later Samuel was walking along the fence line when he met a young bull grazing on the grass.
"Hello, Bull." he said,"I'm Samuel the sheep."
The bull looked up with an arrogant glint in his eye. He looked Samuel up and down, judging wether or not it was OK to talk with this new aquaintance. After a few moments the bull swallowed his grass and greeted Samuel.
"Hello, Samuel. I am Sir Toby." Sir Toby shook his long tale to swish away flies with a slight disgust. As he did so, the bell around his collar rang lightly. It was a nice bell, a brass bell, tied at the end of a long thick velvet collar.
Sir Toby was quite obviously proud of both the shiny brass bell and velvet collar, for as he walked he pushed out his chest so that the sun shone on the bell and all could admire the soft velvet.
The two became fast friends. The only problem was that Toby was rather bossy. They could only do what Toby wanted, go where Toby wanted, but Samuel didn’t care, he liked having a friend.
Toby and Samuel were walking back to the barn a few days later, Toby was bragging again about his bell and collar, describing the fell of the velvet on his fur and the gleam of the bell in the sun when a chicken walked by.
“Hey, gimpy! Stupid head!” yelled Toby.
Toby nudged Samuel to follow his lead. He did.
“Yeah you stupid chicken!” hollered Samuel.
The chicken looked up from his grain with a frown then turned and trotted away. When he turned Samuel saw that he only had one wing. What happened to him? wondered Samuel instantly feeling bad for making fun of him. But Toby didn’t seem to care, so Samuel didn’t say anything about it, they just went on there way.
“Who is that chicken?” enquired Samuel to his mother once.
“What chicken?” said his mother.
“The one that is missing a wing.” Samuel took a large bight of ivy from the garden.
“Oh that poor dear soul. That’s Paul. He really is just the sweetest little thing!”
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