Squinty the Comical Pig | Page 8

that bread and jam was much nicer than the kind you could get at home, though really there isn't any better bread and jam than mother makes. But, somehow or other, the kind you get away from home tastes differently, doesn't it?
It was that way with Squinty, the comical pig. He ate and ate the pig weed, until he had eaten about as much as was good for him. And then, as he saw one little potato on the ground, where it had rolled out of the hill in which it grew with the others, Squinty ate that. He did not think the farmer would care.
"Oh, how good it is!" he thought. "I wish I had not eaten so much pig weed, then I could eat more of those funny, round things the farmer calls potatoes. Now I will have to wait until I am hungry again."
Squinty knew that would not be very long, for pigs get hungry many times a day. That is what makes them grow fat so fast--they eat so often. But eating often is not good for boys and girls.
Squinty had now come some distance away from the pen, where he lived with his mother, father, sisters and brothers. He wondered if they had awakened yet, or had seen the hole out of which he had crawled, and if they were puzzled as to where he had gone.
"But they can't find me!" said Squinty, with something that sounded like a laugh. I suppose pigs can laugh--in their own way, at any rate.
"No, they can't find me," thought Squinty, looking all around. All he saw were the rows of potato vines, and, farther off, a field of tall, green corn.
"Well, I have the whole day to myself!" thought Squinty. "I can do as I please, and not go back until night. Let me see, what shall I do first? I guess I will go to sleep in the shade."
So he stretched out in the shade of a big potato vine, and, curling up in a little pink ball, he closed his eyes, the squinty one as well as the good one. But first Squinty looked all around to make sure Don, the dog, was not in sight. He saw nothing of him.
When Squinty awakened he felt hungry, as he always did after a sleep.
"Now for some more of those nice potatoes!" he said to himself. He liked them, right after his first taste. He did not look around for the little ones that might have fallen out of the hills themselves. No, instead, Squinty began rooting them out of the earth with his strong, rubbery nose, made just for digging.
I am not saying Squinty did right in this. In fact he did wrong, but then he was a little pig, and he knew no better. In fact it was the first time he had really run away so far, and he was quite hungry. And potatoes were better than pig weed.
Squinty ate as many potatoes as he wanted, and then he said to himself, in a way pigs have:
"Well, I guess I'll go on to the brook, and cool off in the water. That will do me good. After that I'll look around and see what will happen next."
Squinty had a good nose for smelling, as most animals have, and, tilting it up in the air, Squinty sniffed and snuffed. He wanted to smell the water, so as to take the shortest path to the brook.
"Ha! It's right over there!" exclaimed Squinty to himself. "I can easily find the water to take a bath."
Across the potato field he went, taking care to keep well down between the rows of green vines, for he did not want to be seen by the dog, or the farmer.
Once, as Squinty was walking along, he saw what he thought was another potato on the ground in front of him. He put his nose out toward it, intending to eat it, but the thing gave a big jump, and hopped out of the way.
"Ha! That must be one of the hop toads I heard my mother tell about," thought Squinty. "I must not hurt them, for they are good to catch the flies that tickle me when I try to sleep. Hop on," he said to the toad. "I won't bother you."
[Illustration: "Hop on," he said to the toad, "I won't bother you."]
The toad did not stop to say anything. She just hopped on, and hid under a big stone. Maybe she was afraid of Squinty, but he would not have hurt her.
Soon the little pig came to the brook of cool water, and after looking about, to see that there was no danger near, Squinty waded in, and took a long drink. Then he rolled over and over again in it,