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Tale of Grunty Pig

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<h3>XIII</h3><h3>HOME AT LAST</h3> "What's this?" Farmer Green exclaimed, when he went to unlock the piggery in the morning and found Grunty Pig lying up against the door. "Did you get locked out last night? Was it you that old Spot was barking at?" Grunty Pig didn't dare answer. When Farmer Green dropped him into the pen he said nothing to anybody—not even "Good morning!" A little later Farmer Green found something more outside the piggery. In the loose dirt he discovered—bear tracks! 56 "Aha!" he cried to his son Johnnie. "Look here! We had a visitor last night. It was no wonder old Spot woke us all up. A bear called on us! And he'd certainly have had that pig if Spot hadn't scared him off." Naturally the news soon spread all over the farmyard. And when Mrs. Pig heard it she began to tremble. "To think," she quavered, "that my littlest child spent the night out of doors, with a bear prowling about the neighborhood! And I slept through it all! "Tell me all about it, Grunty!" she commanded that young gentleman. It is not surprising that Grunty Pig was puzzled. Hadn't his mother told him, during the night, not to mention the word bear again? And now she was urging him to talk about that very animal. "Squeak up!" said his mother sharply—which57 was the same as saying, "Speak up!" So he told his story. And when he had finished Mrs. Pig fairly covered him with caresses. "It seems to me—" she sniffed—for she was quite upset—"it seems to me that I remember your saying something about a bear last night. But I wasn't wide awake at the time. And I thought you were fibbing again. "Perhaps," she added, "this will teach you a few things that you needed to learn.... Always mind your mother!" said Mrs. Pig. "And always tell the truth!" Her children all repeated the words after her. And Grunty Pig's voice could have been heard plainly above all the rest. His mother looked at him fondly. She had always claimed that she had no favorite58 among her children. But now she couldn't help thinking what a promising youngster Grunty was, even if he was the runt of the family. "That's a good Grunty," said Mrs. Pig. "You won't forget this lesson, will you?" "No, Mother!" Grunty answered. Now, that very afternoon Mrs. Pig took it into her head to have her children say the morning's lesson again. So she called her youngsters together. And she asked Grunty the first of all to recite what she had taught him. "I think it was something about a bear," he stammered, "but I can't remember exactly." "Dear me!" said poor Mrs. Pig. "I don't know what I'll do with this lad." Then she asked the other children, one by one, what they had learned that very morning. 59 There wasn't one of them that hadn't forgotten everything. "Dear me!" said unhappy Mrs. Pig. "I don't know what I'll do with all of them. But I'll treat them all alike. I have no favorite. There isn't one of them that's stupider than another." When Grunty Pig heard that he felt quite proud. It was something, anyhow, to be as stupid as the rest, even if he was smaller. <hr />60 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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