Lit2Go

“Squinty, I don’t believe we’re going to find any cocoanut trees in this woods,” said Mappo, the monkey, after he and the little pig had wandered on for some time.

“It doesn’t seem so, does it?” spoke Squinty, looking all around, first with his wide-open eye, and then with his queer, droopy one.

The monkey ran along, now on the ground, and now and then swinging himself up in the branches of trees, by his long legs, each one of which had a sort of hand on the end. Sometimes he hung by his tail, for monkeys are made to do that.

“My, I wish I could get up in the trees the way you do,” said Squinty. “Do you think I could hang by my tail, Mappo?”

“I don’t know,” answered the monkey, scratching his head. “Your tail has a nice little curl in it, almost like mine. Did you ever try to hang by your tail?”

“No, I never did.”

“Well, you don’t know what you can do until you try,” said Mappo.

The two animal friends soon came to where some of the acorn nuts had fallen off a tree, and they ate as many as they wanted. Mappo said they were not as good as cocoanuts, but he liked them pretty well, because he was hungry. And Squinty thought acorns were just the best things he had ever tasted, except apples, and potatoes or perhaps sour milk.

By this time it was getting dark, and Squinty said:

“Oh dear, I wonder where we can sleep tonight?”

“Oh, do not let that worry you,” said Mappo. “I am used to living in the woods. When I was little, before I was caught and put in the circus, I lived in the woods all the while. See, here is a nice hollow stump, filled with leaves, for you to sleep in, and I will climb a tree, and sleep in that.”

“Couldn’t you sleep down in the stump with me?” asked Squinty. “It’s sort of lonesome, all by yourself in the dark.”

“Yes, I’ll sleep with you,” said Mappo. “Now we’ll make up a nice bed.”

But, just as they were piling some more leaves in the hollow stump, they heard many voices of men shouting in the woods.

“Here he is! Here is that runaway monkey! I see him! Come and catch him!” cried the men.

“Oh, they’re from the circus! They’re after me!” cried Mappo. “I must run and hide. Good-by, Squinty. I’ll see you again sometime, maybe. You had better run, also, or the circus men may catch you.”

Squinty looked through the trees, and saw a number of men coming toward him and the monkey. Then Mappo climbed up in a tall tree, and Squinty ran away as fast as his little short legs would take him.

“Never mind the pig! Get the monkey!” Squinty heard one man cry, and then the comical little pig dodged under a bush, and kept on running.

When Squinty stopped running it was quite dark. He could hardly see, and he had run into several trees, and bumped his nose a number of times. It hurt him very much.

“Well, I guess I’m lost again,” thought Squinty. “And I am all alone. Oh, what a lot of things has happened to me since I was in the pen with my mamma and papa and sisters and brothers! I wish I were back with them again.”

Squinty felt very sad and lonesome. He wondered if the circus men had caught Mappo. Then he felt that he had better find a place where he could cover himself up with the dry leaves, and go to sleep.

He walked about in the dark until, all of a sudden, he stumbled into a hole that was filled with dried grass.

“I guess I had better stay here,” thought Squinty. So he pulled some of the grass over him, and went to sleep.

When he awoke the sun was shining.

“I must get my breakfast,” thought Squinty. He hunted about until he had found some acorns, and then, coming to a little brook of water he took a long drink. Something about the brook made Squinty look at it carefully.

“Why—why!” he exclaimed to himself: “It seems to me I have been here before! Yes, I am sure I have. This is the place where I first came to get a drink, when first I ran away. It is near the pen where I used to live! Oh, I wonder if I can find that?”

The heart of Squinty was beating fast as he looked around at the scenes he had seen when he was a very little pig, some weeks before. Yes, it was the same brook. He was sure of it. And there was the garden of potatoes, and the cornfield where he had first lost his way.

Hark! What was that?

Off in the rows of corn he heard a dog barking. Somehow he knew that dog’s bark.

“If that could be Don!” thought Squinty, hopefully.

The barking sounded nearer. Squinty turned around, standing on the edge of the little brook, and waited, his heart beating faster and faster.

All at once there came running through the potato field a black and white dog. Squinty knew him at once.

It was Don!

“Bow wow! Bow wow!” barked Don. “Well, if there isn’t that comical little pig, Squinty! Where in the world did you come from? You’ve been running away, I’ll be bound! Now I’m going to take you back to the pen!”

“Oh, Don! I am so glad to see you!” squealed Squinty. “I—I did run away, but I never will any more. I am lost. Oh, Don, don’t take me by the ear. I’ll go with you.”

“All right,” barked Don, kindly. “Come along. Your pen isn’t far off,” and he ran along beside the little pig, who, after many adventures had wandered back home. Squinty and Don came to the edge of the potato field.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed the farmer man, who was there hoeing the potatoes. “If there isn’t that comical little pig I sold to that boy Bob. I wonder where he came from?”

“Bow wow! Bow wow! I found him,” barked Don, but of course the farmer did not understand.

“Well, I’ll put you back in the pen again until that boy sends for you,” said the farmer, as he lifted Squinty over into the pen where his mamma and papa and brothers and sisters were.

“Why—why, it’s Squinty!” cried Mrs. Pig.

“He’s come back!” grunted Mr. Pig.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Wuff-Wuff.

“And so am I,” added Twisty Tail, as she rubbed her nose against Squinty’s. “Where have you been, and what happened to you?” she asked her brother.

“Oh, many things,” he said. “I have learned some tricks, I have been up in a balloon, I met Slicko the jumping squirrel, Mappo, the merry monkey, and I saw Tum-Tum, the jolly circus elephant. Now I am home again.”

“And which did you like best of all?” asked Mrs. Pig, when they had finished asking him questions.

“Getting back home,” answered Squinty, as he took a big drink of sour milk.

And that is the story of Squinty, the comical pig. The farmer sent word to the boy that his pet was back in the pen, but the boy said he thought he did not want a pet pig any more, so Squinty, for the time being, stayed with his family.