with the rest of Mrs. Pig's children.

"Are you going to feed him?" Johnnie Green inquired.

Again his father laughed.

"No!" he replied. "That pig has stuffed himself so full he can scarcely
waddle."

As for Mrs. Pig, she didn't know whether to laugh or to weep. She was
glad to have Grunty safe at home again; but he was a sad sight.

At first Mrs. Pig thought Farmer Green had made a mistake. She thought
he had found somebody else's child. For Grunty was so daubed with black
mud that she actually didn't know him until she heard him grunt. "Where
have you been?" she asked him in her sternest voice.

"I've been out in the world," he answered. "And I've had a fine time."

"It's easy to see," said Mrs. Pig, "that you're a born wallower. It's a
pity that you haven't your brother Blackie's complexion. The dirt does
show so dreadfully on silver bristles!"

VII

THE GRUMBLER

All the farmyard folk agreed that Farmer Green took the best of care of
everybody. Mrs. Pig often told her children that they were lucky to have
so good a home. And not having lived anywhere else, they never imagined
that anything could be finer than their pen.

After the day when he escaped from the pen, however, Grunty Pig began to
complain. He wasn't satisfied with the food that Farmer Green gave him,
he grumbled because there was no good place to wallow in mud, and
especially did he object because there wasn't a tree to rub against.
"The orchard," he often said, "is a much pleasanter place than this pen
is. There are trees enough in the orchard for every member of our family
to rub against--all at the same time."

Somehow, when Grunty talked in that fashion every one of Mrs. Pig's
children began to crowd against the sides of the pen. And even Mrs. Pig
herself felt an annoying tickling along her back. She did wish that
Grunty wouldn't mention such matters.

But nothing Mrs. Pig could say seemed to do any good. He was always
prattling, anyhow. She could no more stop his flow of grunts and squeals
than she could have kept the water in the brook from babbling down the
mountainside to Swift River.

And even more annoying to Mrs. Pig was the way her son Grunty tried to
rub his back against _her_. She said "Don't!" to him so often that she
became heartily sick of the word.

What bothered Mrs. Pig most of all was Grunty's behavior whenever Farmer
Green came to the pen. It was mortifying to her to have her son actually
try to _scratc