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But I have no time to tell you more of that boy now. I must relate for you the wonderful adventures of Squinty. Squinty went this way and that through the woods, but he could not find the path that led to his pen. He tried and tried again, but it was of no use. "Well," said Squinty, at last, sitting down beside a hollow log, "I guess I am lost.
We did not see that you were not here until too late. It's too bad!" Squinty thought so himself, for the smell of the sour milk that had been in the feeding trough made him more hungry than ever. Squinty walked over and tried to find a few drops in the bottom of the wooden trough. These he licked up with his red tongue. But there was not nearly enough. "Ha!
One of those pigs has gotten out. I must look into this!" Quickly he glanced all about the pen. He saw the hole out of which Squinty had run away. "I thought so!" exclaimed the farmer. "One of the pigs has rooted his way out. I'll have to go after him. Here, Don!" he called to his dog. "A pig is loose!
"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.
"But if I had awakened them, and asked them to run away with me, mamma or papa might have heard, and stopped us." Squinty did not feel at all sorry about running away and leaving his father and mother, and brothers and sisters. You see he thought he would be back with them again in a few hours, for he did not intend to stay away from the pen longer than that.
While they were doing this they ate and slept as they always did. Squinty, several times, looked at the hole under the pen, by which he had once gotten out. He felt sure he could again push his way through, and run away. But he did not do it. "No, I will wait and let the boy take me away," thought Squinty. Several times after this the boy and his sisters came to look down into the pig pen.
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.
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!" The rows of corn, in the field where Squinty the comical pig was lost, were like the streets of a city.
Not Tomaso, who would have convinced even Mary V of his harmlessness, but a broad-shouldered, square-faced man with squinty eyes, a constant smile, and only a slight accent. Johnny went to the door, plainly hesitating over the common little courtesy of inviting him in.
On and on went the little pig, looking back now and then toward the pen to see if any of the other pigs were coming after him. But none were. And there was no sign of Don, the barking dog, nor the farmer, either. There was nothing to stop Squinty from running away. Soon he was some distance from the pen, and then he thought it would be safe to nibble at a bit of pig weed.
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