as upset
this house, you nuissance, you porker! I'll deprive you
of your life this day!'

"Corocotta Porker sayeth: 'What, perchance, have I done?
In what way, please, have I sinned? Have I with my feet
perhaps smashed your crockery? I beg of you, Mr. Cook, I
entreat you, if such be the case, kindly grant the
supplicant a reprieve.'

"The Chief Cook sayeth: 'Go over there, boy! Fetch me
from the kitchen that slaughtering-knife. I'm just
itching to give this porker a blood-bath!'

"Mr. Porker, realizing that this is the season when
cabbage sprouts are abundant, and visualizing himself
potted and peppered, and furthermore seeing that death
is inevitable, asks for time and begs of the cook
whether it was possible to make a will. This granted, he
calls out with a loud voice to his parents to save for
them the food that was to have been his own in the
future, to wit:

"To my father, Mr. Genuine Bacon-Fat, appointed by me
in my last will I give and bequeath: thirty measures of
acorns; and to my mother, Mrs. Old-Timer Sow, appointed
by me in my last will, I give and bequeath: forty
measures of Spartan wheat; and to my sister, Cry-Baby,
appointed by me in my last will, whose wedding, alas! I
cannot attend, I give and bequeath: thirty measures of
barley; and of my nobler parts and property I give and
bequeath, to the cobbler: my bristles; to the brawlers,
my jaw-bones; to the deaf, my ears; to the shyster
lawyers, my tongue; to the cow-herds, my intestines; to
the sausage makers, my thighs; to the ladies, my
tenderloins; to the boys, my bladder; to the girls, my
little pig's tail; to the dancers, my muscles; to the
runners and hunters, my knuckles; to the hired man, my
hoofs; and to the cook--though not to be named--I give
and bequeath and transmit my belly and appendage which I
have dragged with me from the rotten oak bottoms to the
pig's sty, for him to tie around his neck and to hang
himself with.

"I wish to erect a monument to myself, inscribed with
golden letters: 'M. Grunter Corocotta Porker lived
nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine years, and had he lived
another half year, a thousand years would have been
nearly completed.'

"I ask of you who love me best, you who live like me, I
ask you: will not my name remain to be eulogized in all