` Will not children be a burden to you ? Are you rich enough to feed and clothe them ? ' ` Only give them to me , my lord , and I will manage somehow ! ' and at a sign from the wise man Stan went his way . He reached home that evening tired and dusty , but with hope in his heart . As he drew near his house a sound of voices struck upon his ear , and he looked up to see the whole place full of children . Children in the garden , children in the yard , children looking out of every window -- it seemed to the man as if all the children in the world must be gathered there . And none was bigger than the other , but each was smaller than the other , and every one was more noisy and more impudent and more daring than the rest , and Stan gazed and grew cold with horror as he realised that they all belonged to him . ` Good gracious ! how many there are ! how many ! ' he muttered to himself . ` Oh , but not one too many , ' smiled his wife , coming up with a crowd more children clinging to her skirts . But even she found that it was not so easy to look after a hundred children , and when a few days had passed and they had eaten up all the food there was in the house , they began to cry , ` Father ! I am hungry -- I am hungry , ' till Stan scratched his head and wondered what he was to do next . It was not that he thought there were too many children , for his life had seemed more full of joy since they appeared , but now it came to the point he did not know how he was to feed them . The cow had ceased to give milk , and it was too early for the fruit trees to ripen . ` Do you know , old woman ! ' said he one day to his wife , ' I must go out into the world and try to bring back food somehow , though I can not tell where it is to come from . ' To the hungry man any road is long , and then there was always the thought that he had to satisfy a hundred greedy children as well as himself .
Stan wandered , and wandered , and wandered , till he reached to the end of the world , where that which is , is mingled with that which is not , and there he saw , a little way off , a sheepfold , with seven sheep XXXXX it .
To as at for in into near though till with