Not many people know about the Cloud Shepherd.
He lives in a cottage at the top of the highest mountain, where the air is thin and very cold. Every evening, just before dark, he puts on his boots and his long coat and goes out to gather the clouds.
He whistles softly — a low, wandering sound — and the clouds come drifting toward him like vast, slow sheep.
He herds them through the valleys, across the peaks, and out over the ocean, arranging them in the patterns that will make the most beautiful sunsets.
He works all night. By the time the sky begins to lighten, the clouds are in exactly the right places for the morning.
Sometimes he makes great stacked towers for dramatic mornings. Sometimes he spreads them in thin layers for pink and orange dawns. On special nights, he strings them across the sky in long rippled rows.
Nobody sees him do it.
But in the morning, people look up and say: wonderful clouds today.
He smiles at that, in his cold cottage at the top of the mountain.
Then he goes to sleep, while the clouds he arranged drift slowly on.