CHAPTER 4

“You’m a polite young chap”

After the last of the puppies had left, the ducks heaved a general sigh of relief. They looked forward to a peaceful day and paid no attention when, the following morning, Fly and Babe came down to the pond and sat and watched them as they squattered and splattered in its soupy green depths. They knew that the old dog would not bother them, and they took no notice of the strange creature at her side.

“They’ll come out and walk up the yard in a minute,” said Fly. “Then you can have a go at fetching them back, if you like.”

“Oh yes, please!” said Babe excitedly.

The collie bitch looked fondly at her foster child. Sheep-pig indeed, she thought, the idea of it! The mere sight of him would probably send the flock into the next county. Anyway, he’d never get near them on those little short legs. Let him play with the ducks for a day or two and he’d forget all about it.

When the ducks did come up out of the water and marched noisily past the piglet, she half expected him to chase after them, as the puppies usually did at first; but he sat very still, he ears cocked, watching her.

“All right,” said Fly. “Let’s see how you get on. Now then, first thing is, you’ve got to get behind them, just like I have to with the sheep. If the boss wants me to go round the right side of them (that’s the side by the stables there), he says ‘Away to me.’ If he wants me to go round the left (that’s the side by the Dutch barn), he says ‘Come by.’ O.K.?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Right then. Away to me, Babe!” said Fly sharply.

At first, not surprisingly, Babe’s efforts met with little success. There was no problem with getting around the ducks—even with his curious little seesawing canter he was much faster than they—but the business of bringing the whole flock back to Fly was not, he found, at all easy. Either he pressed them too hard and they broke up and fluttered all over the place, or he was too gentle and held back, and they waddled away in twos and threes.

“Come and have a rest, dear,” called Fly after a while. “Leave the silly things alone, they’re not worth upsetting yourself about.”

“I’m not upset, Mum,” said Babe. “Just puzzled. I mean, I told them what I wanted them to do but they didn’t take any notice of me. Why not?”

Because you weren’t born to it, thought Fly. You haven’t got the instinct to dominate them, to make them do what you want.

“It’s early days yet, Babe dear,” she said.

“Do you suppose,” said Babe, “that if I asked them politely…”

“Asked them politely! What an idea! Just imagine me doing that with the sheep—‘please will you go through that gateway,’ ‘would you kindly walk into that pen?’ Oh no, dear, you’d never get anywhere that way. You’ve got to tell ’em what to do, doesn’t matter whether it’s ducks or sheep. They’re stupid and dogs are intelligent, that’s what you have to remember.”

“But I’m a pig.”

“Pigs are intelligent too,” said Fly firmly. Ask them politely, she thought. Whatever next!

—

What happened next, later that morning in fact, was that Babe met his first sheep.

Farmer Hogget and Fly had been out around the flock, and when they returned Fly was driving before her an old lame ewe, which they penned in the loose box where the piglet had originally been shut. Then they went away up the hill again.

Babe made his way into the stables, curious to meet this, the first of the animals that he planned one day to work with, but he could not see into the box. He snuffled under the bottom of the door, and from inside there came a cough and the sharp stamp of a foot, and then the sound of a hoarse complaining voice. “Wolves! Wolves!” it said. “They never do leave a body alone. Nag, nag, nag all day long, go here, go there, do this, do that. What d’you want now? Can’t you give us a bit of peace, wolf?”

“I’m not a wolf,” said Babe under the door.

“Oh, I knows all that,” said the sheep sourly. “Calls yourself a sheepdog, I knows that, but you don’t fool none of us. You’re a wolf like the rest of ’em, given half a chance. You looks at us, and you sees lamb chops. Go away, wolf.”

“But I’m not a sheepdog either,” said Babe, and he scrambled up the stack of straw bales and looked over the bars.

“You see?” he said.

“Well I’ll be dipped,” said the old sheep, peering up at him. “No more you ain’t. What are you?”

“Pig,” said Babe. “Large White. What are you?”

“Ewe,” said the sheep.

“No, not me, you—what are you?”

“I’m a ewe.”

Mum was right, thought Babe, they certainly are stupid. But if I’m going to learn how to be a sheep-pig I must try to understand them, and this might be a good chance. Perhaps I could make a friend of this one.

“My name’s Babe,” he said in a jolly voice. “What’s yours?”

“Maaaaa,” said the sheep.

“That’s a nice name,” said Babe. “What’s the matter with you, Ma?”

“Foot rot,” said the sheep, holding up a foreleg. “And I’ve got a nasty cough.” She coughed. “And I’m not as young as I was.”

“You don’t look very old to me,” said Babe politely.

A look of pleasure came over the sheep’s mournful face, and she lay down in the straw.

“Very civil of you to say so,” she said. “First kind word I’ve had since I were a little lamb,” and she belched loudly and began to chew a mouthful of cud. Though he did not quite know why, Babe said nothing to Fly of his conversation with Ma. Farmer Hogget had treated the sheep’s foot and tipped a potion down its protesting throat, and now, as darkness fell, dog and pig lay side by side, their rest only occasionally disturbed by a rustling from the box next door. Having at last set eyes on a sheep, Babe’s dreams were immediately filled with the creatures, all lame, all coughing, all, like the ducks, scattering wildly before his attempts to round them up.

“Go here, go there, do this, do that!” he squeaked furiously at them, but they took not a bit of notice, until at last the dream turned to a nightmare, and they all came hopping and hacking and maa-ing after him with hatred gleaming in their mad yellow eyes.

“Mum! Mum!” shouted Babe in terror.

“Maaaaa!” said a voice next door.

“It’s all right dear,” said Fly, “it’s all right. Was it a nasty dream?”

“Yes, yes.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“Sheep, Mum.”

“I expect it was because of that stupid old thing in there,” said Fly. “Shut up!” she barked. “Noisy old fool!” And to Babe she said, “Now cuddle up, dear, and go to sleep. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

She licked his snout until it began to give out a series of regular snores. Sheep-pig indeed, she thought, why the silly boy’s frightened of the things, and she put her nose on her paws and went to sleep. Babe slept soundly the rest of the night, and woke more determined than ever to learn all that he could from their new neighbor. As soon as Fly had gone out on her rounds, he climbed the straw stack.

“Good morning, Ma,” he said. “I do hope you’re feeling better today?”

The old ewe looked up. Her eyes, Babe was glad to see, looked neither mad nor hateful.

“I must say,” she said, “you’m a polite young chap. Not like that wolf, shouting at me in the middle of the night. Never get no respect from them, treat you like dirt they do, bite you soon as look at you.”

“Do they really?”

“Oh ar. Nip your hocks if you’m a bit slow. And worse, some of them.”

“Worse?”

“Oh ar. Ain’t you never heard of worrying?”

“I don’t worry much.”

“No no, young un. I’m talking about sheep-worrying. You get some wolves as’ll chase sheep and kill ’em.”

“Oh!” said Babe, horrified. “I’m sure Fly would never do that.”

“Who’s Fly?”

“She’s my m…she’s our dog here, the one that brought you in yesterday.”

“Is that what she’s called? No, she bain’t a worrier, just rude. All wolves is rude to us sheep, see, always have been. Bark and run and nip and call us stupid. We bain’t all that stupid, we do just get confused. If only they’d just show a bit of common politeness, just treat us a bit decent. Now if you was to come out into the field, a nice well-mannered young chap like you, and ask me to go somewhere or do something, politely, like you would, why, I’d be only too delighted.”