United States or Zimbabwe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If I had been there to stop them they might never have taken the range but after that, all through the hot summer when the cattle were dying for feed, every time the wind came up and roared in my ears I would hear sheep baaa, baaa and now I hear them again." He paused and looked up at her intently. "Do you know what that noise means to me?" he demanded, almost roughly.
Now the leaping, glittering sea was so bright it made one's eyes ache to look at it. The shepherd drew a pipe, the bowl as small as an acorn, out of his breast pocket, fumbled for a chunk of speckled tobacco, pared off a few shavings and stuffed the bowl. He was a grave, fine-looking old man. As he lit up and the blue smoke wreathed his head, the dog, watching, looked proud of him. "Baa! Baaa!"
All the Lambs said, "Baa! Baaa!" in their high, soft voices, and their mothers said "Baa! Baaa!" more loudly; and the Bell-Wether added his "Baa! Baaa!" which was so deep and strong that it sounded like a little, very little, clap of thunder. Collie came frisking along with his tail waving and his eyes gleaming.
The sheep ran forward in little pattering rushes; they began to bleat, and ghostly flocks and herds answered them from under the sea. "Baa! Baaa!" For a time they seemed to be always on the same piece of ground. There ahead was stretched the sandy road with shallow puddles; the same soaking bushes showed on either side and the same shadowy palings.
On the next year no rain came, and the river ran low, yet the plains were still yellow with last year's grass. All would have been well now as before, with grass for all, when down from the north like grasshoppers came the borregos baaa, baaa, baaa thousands of them, and they were starving.