a day," they said.
"What a morning for a run!"

"I can beat you to the tall grass!" called one little Lamb to the rest,
and they all scampered around the field, throwing up their heels for
joy. They had been away from their mothers for awhile, and had learned
to eat grass instead of milk. They were quite proud of the way in which
they broke it off, with quick upward jerks of their heads, and their
teeth were growing finely. They did not expect any upper front teeth,
for in place of them the Sheep have only a hard pad of flesh.

Soon they came running back to the flock. "There is a Dog over there,"
they cried, "a strange Dog. He doesn't look like Collie. He is coming
this way, and we are afraid."

Their uncle, the Bell-Wether, looked over to where the strange Dog was,
then turned quickly and began to run. The bell around his neck clinked
at every step. When the other Sheep heard the bell they raised their
heads and ran after him, and the Lambs ran after them. The strange Dog
did not follow or even bark at them, yet on they went, shaking the
shining rain-drops from the grass as they trod upon it. Not one of them
was thinking for himself what he really ought to do. The Bell-Wether
thought, "I feel like running away from the Dog, and so I will run."

The other Sheep said to themselves, "The Bell-Wether is running and so
we will run."

And the Lambs said, "If they are all running we will run."

Along the fence they went, the bell clinking, their hoofs pattering, and
not one of them thinking for himself, until they reached a place where
the fence was blown over. It was not blown 'way down, but leaned so that
it could be jumped. If a single one of the flock, even the youngest
Lamb, had said, "Don't jump!" they would have stayed in the pasture; but
nobody said it. The Bell-Wether felt like jumping over, so he jumped.
Then the Sheep did as the Bell-Wether had done, and the Lambs did as the
Sheep had done.

Now they were in the road and the Bell-Wether turned away from the
farmhouse and ran on, with the Sheep and the Lambs following. Even now,
if anybody had said, "Stop!" they would have stopped, for they knew that
they were doing wrong; but nobody said it.

After a while a heavy wagon came rumbling down the road behind them, and
the Bell-Wether jumped over a ditch and ran into a hilly field with
woodland beyond. Because he went the Sheep did, and because the Sheep
went the Lambs did, and nobody said "Stop!" You see, by