Squinty the Comical Pig | Page 9

washing off all the mud and dirt, and coming out as clean and as pink as a little baby. Squinty was a real nice pig, even if he had run away.
"Let me see," he said to himself, after his bath. "What shall I do now? Which way shall I go?"
Well, he happened to be hungry after his swim. In fact Squinty was very often hungry, so he thought he would see if he could find anything more to eat.
"I have had potatoes and pig weed," he thought, "and now I would like some apples. I wonder if there are any apple trees around here?"
He looked and, across the field of corn, he thought he saw an apple tree. He made up his mind to go there.
And that is where Squinty made another mistake. He made one when he ran away from the pen, and another one when he started to go through the corn field.
Corn, you know, grows quite high, and pigs, even the largest of them, are not very tall. At least not until they stand on their hind legs. That was a trick Squinty had not yet learned. So he had to go along on four legs, and this made him low down.
Now he had been able to look over the tops of the potato vines, as they were not very high, but Squinty could not look over the top of the corn stalks. No sooner had he gotten into the field, and started to walk along the corn rows, than he could not see where he was going. He could not even see the apple tree in the middle of the field.
"Well, this is queer," thought Squinty. "I guess I had better go back. No, I will keep on. I may come to the apple tree soon."
He hurried on between the corn rows. But, though he went a long distance, he did not come to the apple tree.
"I guess I will go back to the brook, where I had my bath, and start over again from there," thought Squinty. "I will not try to get any apples to-day. I will eat only potatoes and pig weed. Yes, I will go back."
But that was not so easy to do as he had thought. Squinty went this way and that, through the rows of corn, but he could not find the brook. He could not find his way back, nor could he find the apple tree. On all sides of him was the tall corn. That was all poor Squinty could see.
Finally, all tired out, and dusty, the little pig stopped, and sighed:
"Oh dear! I guess I am lost!"
CHAPTER IV
SQUINTY GETS HOME
The rows of corn, in the field where Squinty the comical pig was lost, were like the streets of a city. They were very straight and even, just like the street where your house is, and, if you liked, you could pretend that each hill of corn was a house.
Perhaps Squinty pretended this, if pigs ever do pretend. At any rate the little lost pig wandered up and down in the rows of corn, peering this way and that, to see which way to go so he could get home again. He began to think that running away was not so much fun as he had at first thought.
"Oh dear!" Squinty grunted, in his funny, squealing voice. "I wonder if I'll ever see my mamma and papa again?"
Squinty ran this way and that up and down the rows of corn, and you can easily imagine what happened. He soon became very tired. "I think I will take a rest," thought Squinty, talking to himself, because there was no one else to whom he could speak. I think the little pig would have been very glad, just then, to speak even to Don, the dog. But Don was not there.
Squinty, wondering what happened to little pigs when they were lost, and if they ever got home again, stretched out on the dirt between two rows of corn. It was shady there, but over-head the hot sun was shining. Squinty's breath came very fast, just as when a dog runs far on a warm day.
But the earth was rather cool, and Squinty liked it. He would much rather have been down by the cool brook, but he knew he could not have a swim in it until he found it. And, just now, he seemed a good way off from it.
Poor Squinty! It was bad enough to be tired and warm, but to be lost was worse, and to be hungry was worse than all--especially to a little pig. And, more than this, there was nothing to eat.
Squinty had tried to nibble at some of the green corn stalks, but he did not like the taste of them. Perhaps he