“I won’t,” answered the boy, with a jolly laugh.

“Well, I wonder what will happen next?” thought Squinty, as he felt himself being carried along again.  He could see nothing but a crowd of persons all about the boy who carried the box.

“I don’t know whether I am going to like this or not—­this coming to live in town,” thought the little pig.  “Still, I cannot help myself, I suppose.  But I do wish I had something to eat.”

I guess the boy must have known Squinty was hungry, for, when he next set down the box, this time in a carriage, the boy gave the little pig a whole apple to eat.  And how good it did taste to Squinty!

“Are you going to make a pen for him?” asked one of the boy’s sisters, as the carriage drove off.

“Yes, as soon as we get to the house,” said the boy.

By this time Squinty was thirsty.  There was no water in his cage, but, a little later, when he saw through the slats, that he was being carried toward a large, white house, he was given a tin of water to drink.

“I’ll just leave him in that box until I can fix a larger one for him,” the boy said, and then, for a while, Squinty was left all to himself.  But he was still in the box, though the box was set in a shady place on the back porch.

All this while Mr. Pig and Mrs. Pig, as well as the brother and sister pigs, in the pen at home, were wondering what had happened to Squinty.

“Where do you think he is now, Mamma?” Wuff-Wuff would ask.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Pig answered.

“And will he ever come back to us?” asked Twisty Tail.

“Perhaps, some day.  I hope so,” said Mrs. Pig, sort of sighing.

“Oh, yes, I think he will,” said Mr. Pig.  “When he gets quite large the boy will get tired of having him for a pet, and perhaps bring him back.”

“Were you ever carried off that way, Papa?” asked Grunter, as he rubbed his back, where a mosquito had bitten him, against the side of the pen.

“Oh, yes, once,” answered Mr. Pig.  “I was taken away from my pen, when I was pretty large, and given to a little girl for a pet.  But she did not keep me long.  I guess she would rather have had her dolls, so I was soon brought back to my pen.  And I was glad of it.”

“Well, I hope they will soon bring Squinty back,” Wuff-Wuff said.  “It is lonesome without him.”

But, after a while, the other pigs found so many things to do, and they were kept so busy, eating sour milk, and getting fat, that they nearly forgot about Squinty.

But, all this time, something was happening to the comical little pig.

Toward evening of the first day that Squinty had been put in the new little cage, the boy, who had not been near him in some time, came back to look at his pet.

“Now I have a larger place for you,” the boy said, speaking just as though Squinty could understand him.  And, in fact, Squinty did know much of what was said to him, though he could not talk back in boy language, being able to speak only his own pig talk.