HOW A PIG LEARNED TO TALK
Snythergen dreamed that he was sitting on a pier, dangling his feet in
the water. Little fishes were nibbling his toes, when suddenly a large
one darted up and took a bite that hurt. Raising both feet quickly, he
woke up.
“You don’t need to be so rough,” said the pig, who had been bowled over
by the raising of Snythergen’s feet and lay on his back, waving his legs
in the air.
“It’s you, is it! Up to your favorite trick of biting my toes! Well, it
serves you right. Of course I am glad you like me, but I wish you would
show your affection in some other way!”
“Oh,” cried the pig. “So you were the strange tree that kicked me and
spoke to me! I recognize you by the taste of your toes. But how was I to
know that the last time I nibbled you, you were a tree,—unless I nibbled
you again to find out?”
“In that case, I’ll forgive you,” said Snythergen, “and I hope you’ll
overlook the fright I gave you.”
They lay on the ground side by side and gazed up at the stars.
“Tell me, how did you learn to talk?” asked Snythergen.
“The farmer’s wife taught me,” said the pig.
“Why did she do that?”
“Because I was hungry.”
“That’s no reason. They give people food when they are hungry—they don’t
teach them to talk.”
“This woman did. She would not give me anything to eat until I learned
to ask for it. And as I was nearly starving I learned rapidly,” said the
pig. “As soon as I could ask for things I gained in weight, and when the
farmer saw I was getting fat he asked his wife to keep right on feeding
me so that—”
“Yes,” said Snythergen.
“_So that they could eat me for dinner!_” faltered the pig, dashing a
tear from his eye.
“Then what did you do?” asked Snythergen.
“I ate as little as possible until the farmer’s wife saw I was getting
thin again. Then she told me to eat all I wanted and not to worry. She
said she would manage somehow so—they would not have to—eat—me for
dinner! I trusted her and after that enjoyed three good meals a day. You
see she had taken a fancy to me because I kept myself looking neat, and
tried to be gentlemanly. She called me ‘Squeaky’ and treated me like a
child of her own. Little by little I began to understand what she said,
and learned to talk.
“One day the farmer’s wife was sitting by the window sewing. The farmer
had gone to town. I trotted up as usual for a chat, but instead of
chatting—
“‘You must go away,’ she said, with a catch in her voice, ‘for my husband
says we must have you—for—dinner—to-morrow!’
“She could hardly say the words. We looked at each other sadly. Then she
took me in her arms and squeezed me so tightly I thought she would break
my bones; and I would not have cared much if she had. To die in her arms
would have been a happier lot than leaving her.
“‘But surely I may come back some day,’ I managed to say, ‘or send for
you when my fortune is made.’
“‘I’m afraid not,’ she faltered.
“I cannot tell you any more about our parting. It was too sad. Somehow I
survived it—I suppose because I was young and the world lay before me.
“A farmer’s buckboard approached in the rough lane, thumping over
the frozen ruts, announcing its coming long in advance. I hid in the
cabbage-patch. The farmer’s wife stopped the vehicle and gossiped with
the driver, to give me a chance to climb into the back and hide.
[Illustration: To die in her arms would have been a happier lot than
leaving her]
“It was not easy to scramble up into the vehicle, for I was fat, and
could not get a foothold. I tried using the spokes of the wheel as a
ladder, but kept slipping and falling back. I knew one side of the wheel
would go up and the other down when the wagon started, but could not
figure out which side did which. However, I decided to take a chance.
Taking a firm grip on one of the lower spokes I braced my feet on the
one below it. It happened to be the right side of the wheel. So when
the vehicle started the spoke I was holding to began to rise, carrying
me up nearly to the top of the wagon. Bracing my legs, I gave a leap
that landed me in the buckboard upon some empty potato sacks. Hurriedly
selecting one I crawled into it.
“The farmer thought he had heard something fall into the wagon, and
stopping his horses, he glanced back. I was hidden by this time but he
saw a bulging under the pile of sacks and was about to poke into them
when I said, ‘Please, Mr. Smythers, let me stay here until we get by
those boys in the road. I am hiding from them.’
“When he heard my voice Mr. Smythers, of course, took me for a boy and he
answered: ‘No, you cannot stay there. You will smother. Come out and I
will protect you from the boys.’
“Receiving no reply he poked about among the sacks until he found the one
I was in.
“‘Why, it’s a pig in the bag instead of a boy!’ he cried in great
surprise. ‘Well, I’ll soon fix him so he can’t get away!’ and he tied up
the opening with a string. ‘But where is that boy that spoke to me just
now?’
“Mr. Smythers looked under the wagon, searched both sides of the road,
and even the trees, but of course found no one. Greatly perplexed he got
into his buckboard and drove on, glancing back every few minutes to see
if there wasn’t a boy around somewhere. After he had driven about a mile
he ceased looking around, and as we were going through a dense forest, I
decided to try to escape. The bag I was in had a hole in it (that is why
I had chosen it), and it was not difficult to make the opening larger by
tearing the rotten threads. Little by little I squeezed myself out, and
dropping off the back of the buckboard, fell in a heap in the road.
“‘Now I am free,’ I thought, and I wandered deeper and deeper into the
woods until I found you.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]