Did George Orwell Know About Baa Baa?

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

One for my master

One for my dame

And one for the little boy who lives down the lane

Let’s face it.  This sheep was a communist at heart.  Otherwise, why distribute wool to all classes equally?  Why should the little boy down the lane get a sack of wool?  After all, it wasn’t his land on which the sheep was grazing.

And yet, when opportunity knocks, even if it’s in the form of a bag of wool, it’s to be recognized and taken advantage of, even if the sentence ends in a preposition.

So what did the master do with his bag of wool?  It was his due, of course, being a master, but he had no use for it, and it was greasy.  “Lanolin,” he was told.  His response:  “Whatever.”  He gave his bag to his man servant.

There was the dame with her bag of wool.  “Wool?” she questioned.  “Was this supposed to be, some sort of joke?  Doesn’t the whole fief know I wear only silk, linen, and in a pinch cotton?”  The dame gave her bag to her maid servant.

Well, there was the man servant and the maid servant and the little boy down the lane, who was their little boy, and here they were all of a sudden with three bags of wool.  “Let’s get busy, the maid servant said.

And busy they did get.  They washed the lanolin out of the wool, then carded it and spun it.  But that was only the beginning.  While the man and maid servant were at work, the little boy found natural dyes to use before the weaving.  The results were most marvelous.

The last market day before snows came.  The family only had to display their cloth for it to be sold right quickly.  The money they earned provided them with wood for the fireplace and food for the table that happily consisted of more than root vegetables this year as winter set in. 

Spring came and the sheep needed shearing.  Once again Baa Baa Black Sheep distributed his wool equally.  Once again the servants were the beneficiaries.  But they would only get one bolt of cloth from this one very generous sheep.  It was the maid servant who approached her dame and asked timorously what was being done with all the bags of wool from all the sheep in the field.  “See the estate manager,” the dame said, waving her servant away.

And thus a deal was done in a most uncommunistic way, as the estate manager wanted a cut of the sales.  But that didn’t stop the man and maid servant and their little boy from having their own cottage industry, which grew and grew and snowballed into something white, fluffy and totally satisfying.

They left their positions with the master and the dame, hired helpers who were paid piece-work wages, grew so wealthy that their son had to become a banker.  He was then able to loan money to the master when it was needed for the dowry of his daughter.

And thus, we owe capitalism to that one black sheep in that field long ago.