This is a green weed that grows in the garden, but it does no good there.  Instead it does harm, and farmers like to pull it up to get rid of it.  But, if pig weed is no good for the garden, it is good for pigs, and they like to chew the green leaves.

“Here, Squinty!” called the farmer’s wife, tossing some of the juicy, green weed to the little pig.  “Eat this!”

“Ugh!  Ugh!” grunted Squinty, and he began to chew the green leaves.  I suppose that was his way of saying:  “Thank you!”

As soon as Squinty’s brothers and sisters saw the green pig weed the farmer’s wife had tossed into the pen, up they rushed to the trough, grunting and squealing, to get some too.

They pushed and scrambled, and even stepped into the trough, so eager were they to get something to eat; even though they had been fed only a little while before.

That is one strange thing about pigs.  They seem to be always hungry.  And Squinty’s brothers and sisters were no different from other pigs.

But wait just a moment.  They were a bit different, for they were much cleaner than many pigs I have seen.  The farmer who owned them knew that pigs do not like to live in mud and dirt any more than do cows and horses, so this farmer had for his pigs a nice pen, with a dry board floor, and plenty of corn husks for their bed.  They had clean water to drink, and a shady place in which to lie down and sleep.

Of course there was a mud bath in the pig pen, for, no matter how clean pigs are, once in a while they like to roll in the mud.  And I’ll tell you the reason for that.

You see flies and mosquitoes and other pests like to bite pigs.  The pigs know this, and they also know that if they roll in the mud, and get covered with it, the mud will make a coating over them to keep the biting flies away.

So that is why pigs like to roll in the mud once in awhile, just as you sometimes see a circus elephant scatter dust over his back, to drive away the flies.  And even such a thick-skinned animal as a rhinoceros likes to plaster himself with mud to keep away the insects.

But after Squinty and his brothers and sisters had rolled in the mud, they were always glad when the farmer came with the garden hose and washed them clean again, so their pink skins showed beneath their white, hairy bristles.

Squinty and the other pigs grew until they were a nice size.  They had nothing to do but eat and sleep, and of course that will make anyone grow.

Now Squinty, though he was not the largest of the family of pig children, was by far the smartest.  He learned more quickly than did his brothers and sisters, how to run to the trough to eat, when his mother called him, and he learned how to stand up against one side of the pen and rub himself back and forth to scratch his side when a mosquito had bitten him in a place he could not reach with his foot.

In fact Squinty was a little too smart.  He wanted to do many things his brothers and sisters never thought of.  One day when Squinty and the others had eaten their dinner, Squinty told his brother Wuff-Wuff that he thought it would be a nice thing to have some fun.