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The Lost Sheep
(Pdf can be found below.)
here was once a boy
who shepherded a flock of a hundred
sheep.
Every morning, he led them out
to graze in the meadows by the
lake,
and every evening,
he counted them one by one
as they
returned to the fold.
He knew them all by name:
Wobblekins and Butterbean,
Snorflehoof
and Starwhistle,
Bumblepuff and Thimbleberry.
And he took pride
in being their protector,
their guide,
their shepherd.
One night, after a long day of grazing,
the boy fell into a deep and
dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, the fold was empty.
Not a single
sheep remained —
except for a lone lamb,
named Lamby,
bleating at
him insistently.
The boy’s heart pounded.
He rushed to the hills,
calling their
names,
scouring every hollow and ravine.
But there was no
answer.
No bleating,
no hoofprints,
no sign of struggle or
wolves.
It was as if the entire flock
had simply vanished.
Day after day, he searched.
Lamby followed him everywhere,
stumbling
through brambles and streams,
her plaintive cry piercing the
silence.
Sometimes she would run ahead,
bleating
urgently,
darting in a direction he didn’t expect,
other times nipping
at his pant legs.
But he would scoop her up
and carry her in his arms.
“There now,” he
would whisper,
“Don’t be afraid.
We’ll find them.”
Weeks passed.
The boy grew ragged and hollow-eyed.
At last, one evening,
he climbed a high ridge at the edge of the
valley.
There, through a break in the mist,
he saw a great green
valley beyond the mountains —
lush pastures shimmering in moonlight.
And there, far below,
his flock!
Every single sheep, grazing
peacefully,
as if they had never been lost.
Their wool shone like
silver in the night.
The boy’s joy turned to confusion.
Why had they gone there without
him?
Why had they left him behind?
As he gazed, Lamby leapt and spun,
bleating with delight.
She nipped at
his trousers,
just as she had been doing all along.
And suddenly, he understood.
The flock had not been lost.
He had been keeping them in the same place
long after it could sustain
them.
So while he slept, they had moved on
to where they could
thrive.
And this little lamb —
whom he had misunderstood,
even scolded —
had been left behind
to guide him home.
Tears stung his eyes.
He lifted Lamby into his arms,
her heartbeat warm
against his chest.
For the first time,
he followed rather than
led,
crossing the ridge under the rising dawn.
When he reached the valley,
the flock surrounded him with gentle
bleats,
pressing close as if to say,
“You were never abandoned.”
From that day forward,
the boy no longer thought of himself as their
leader,
but as their companion —
the hundred-and-first sheep.
And sometimes,
when the sun sank low
and shadows stretched
long,
he would remember the night
when he realized that
the lost sheep was himself.
—William Zeitler
2025 September 9
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