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Ellis Parker Butler

Ellis Parker Butler

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author born in Muscatine, Iowa. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays, and is most famous for his short story “Pigs is Pigs,” in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs, which soon start proliferating geometrically.

  • Nationality: American
  • Birth Date: 5 Dec 1869
  • Death Date: 13 Sept 1937
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Individual Passages

Pigs is Pigs
Railway agent Mike Flannery wants to charge the livestock rate for a shipment of two guinea pigs. He refuses to accept the lower pet rate saying “Pigs is Pigs.” The grumbling customer complains to the railway company. Meanwhile while the guinea pigs reproduce and eat in Flannery’s stationhouse.