A shepherd kept his sheep in a pen enclosed by a low wall.
One day, a little lamb found a hole in the wall and crawled out through it. It wandered around the hills and the meadows but a wolf spotted it and started to chase it around. The lamb ran for its life but the wolf was fast and hungry and was gaining on the lamb.
Suddenly there was a loud crack as the shepherd’s club hit the wolf squarely on its skull. The shepherd picked up the lamb and carried it back home, whispering to it gently along the way. He put the lamb back in the pen.
His neighbors heard about the incident and urged him to patch up the hole in the wall.
But despite their urgings, the shepherd decided to keep the hole right where it was.