Chapter 5

SIXES AND SEVENS

Not until feeding time came did anyone discover that Grunty Pig was gone from the pen. It may seem strange that neither his mother nor any of his brothers and sisters missed him. But when there are seven children in a family it is no wonder that one of them could slip away without having his absence noticed. It is specially easy, in such a large family, to overlook the littlest.

If Mrs. Pig had known there was a loose board on the pen she would certainly have counted noses to find out whether her children were all safe at home. But nobody knew about that loose board except Grunty himself.

It was lucky that Farmer Green had made the lid for Mrs. Pig's children's feeding trough—the lid with the seven holes in it. When he poured the children's supper into the trough and slammed down the lid he stood and watched Mrs. Pig's youngsters as they scrambled to the trough and stuck—each of them—a nose into a hole.

All at once Farmer Green noticed something queer. "Hullo!" he cried to his son Johnnie. "There's an empty hole here. We've lost a pig!"

He looked closely at the row of six squirming bunches of squeals.

"I declare!" said Farmer Green. "It's the runt that's gone."

Mrs. Pig, who was enjoying her own supper a little way off, did not hear what Farmer Green said. Her children were making a good deal of noise. And to tell the truth, Mrs. Pig herself wasn't exactly a silent eater. When Farmer Green jumped into the pen and began to poke at the sides of it she wondered what he was doing. Soon he found the loose board and pushed against it with his foot, exclaiming, "Here's where he got away! Who'd have thought that the runt was the smartest of the family?

"Run and get me a hammer and a few nails," said Farmer Green to his son Johnnie. "We must fix this pen before any more of the pigs crawl out."

Well, when she heard the news Mrs. Pig nearly choked over a bit of something or other that she was eating. Grunty was gone! If she hadn't spent most of the afternoon dozing perhaps she would have missed him. And poor Mrs. Pig began to reproach herself for what wasn't really her fault at all.

"I hope you'll find him," she told Farmer Green as he drove a nail into the loose board. "I hope you won't leave my son out to-night. There's no knowing what might happen to a child of his tender years."

Maybe Farmer Green heard her request. Anyhow, as he handed the hammer to Johnnie he said, "Come and help me, after you put the hammer back. We'll have to find that pig. If a bear happened to come down from the mountain to-night he'd treat himself to a feast. That runt would make a nice, tender meal."

Mrs. Pig must certainly have heard—and understood—Farmer Green's remark. For she gave a loud squeal of alarm.

"Hurry!" she begged him. "Please, Mr. Green, do find Grunty before dark!"