Little Boy Blue stood on the low hill between the meadow and the cornfield. A blue cap shaded his brow, and a small brass horn hung from a cord across his chest. Below him, the sheep moved through the meadow in a white, woolly drift. On the other side, the cows cropped near the edge of the corn, switching their tails at flies. It was his work that day to watch them both, ready to lift the horn if they strayed too far.
As the sun climbed higher and bees drifted from clover to clover, Little Boy Blue walked once along the meadow fence and once beside the corn. He looked from the sheep to the cows, touching the horn at his side as if to remind himself it was there. "Stay where the grass is good," he told the sheep, and "Leave the tall corn standing," he warned the cows. But the sheep only nibbled, and the cows only chewed.
Near the middle of the hill stood a hayrick, warm with the smell of summer and casting a narrow strip of cool shadow. Little Boy Blue sat there for a moment with the horn in his lap, meaning only to rest his back against the hay. While the bees kept humming and a lark rose and dropped in the sky, his cap slipped a little over one eye. Before he even thought to stand, his hands loosened around the horn, and sleep came down over him like a light …
6 chapters
