Pigs is Pigs | Page 7

as he read it he laughed.
"Flannery must be crazy. He ought to know that the thing to do is to
return the consignment here," said the clerk. He telegraphed Flannery
to send the pigs to the main office of the company at Franklin.
When Flannery received the telegram he set to work. The six boys be
had engaged to help him also set to work. They worked with the haste
of desperate men, making cages out of soap boxes, cracker boxes, and
all kinds of boxes, and as fast as the cages were completed they filled
them with guinea-pigs and expressed them to Franklin. Day after day
the cages of guineapigs flowed in a steady stream from Westcote to
Franklin, and still Flannery and his six helpers ripped and nailed and
packed--relentlessly and feverishly. At the end of the week they had
shipped two hundred and eighty cases of guinea-pigs, and there were in
the express office seven hundred and four more pigs than when they
began packing them.
"Stop sending pigs. Warehouse full," came a telegram to Flannery. He
stopped packing only long enough to wire back, "Can't stop," and kept
on sending them. On the next train up from Franklin came one of the
company's inspectors. He had instructions to stop the stream of
guinea-pigs at all hazards. As his train drew up at Westcote station he
saw a cattle car standing on the express company's siding. When he
reached the express office he saw the express wagon backed up to the
door. Six boys were carrying bushel baskets full of guinea- pigs from
the office and dumping them into the wagon. Inside the room Flannery,
with' his coat and vest off, was shoveling guinea-pigs into bushel

baskets with a coal scoop. He was winding up the guinea-pig episode.
He looked up at the inspector with a snort of anger.
"Wan wagonload more an, I'll be quit of thim, an' niver will ye catch
Flannery wid no more foreign pigs on his hands. No, sur! They near
was the death o' me. Nixt toime I'll know that pigs of whaiver
nationality is domistic pets--an' go at the lowest rate. "
He began shoveling again rapidly, speaking quickly between breaths.
"Rules may be rules, but you can't fool Mike Flannery twice wid the
same thrick--whin ut comes to live stock, dang the rules. So long as
Flannery runs this expriss office--pigs is pets--an' cows is pets--an'
horses is pets--an' lions an' tigers an' Rocky Mountain goats is pets--an'
the rate on thim is twinty-foive cints."
He paused long enough to let one of the boys put an empty basket in
the place of the one he had just filled. There were only a few
guinea-pigs left. As he noted their limited number his natural habit of
looking on the bright side returned.
"Well, annyhow," he said cheerfully, "'tis not so bad as ut might be.
What if thim dago pigs had been elephants!"

End of Project Gutenberg Etext of "Pigs is Pigs," by Ellis Parker Butler

Pigs is Pigs

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