“I’ll make a big hole,” he thought to himself.

And, as Squinty dug down, he noticed that he could see under the bottom of the boards.  He could look right out into the garden.

“That is very queer,” thought the little pig boy.  “I believe I can get out of the pen by crawling under a board, as well as by pushing one loose from the side.  I’ll try it.”  Squinty was learning things, you see.

So he dug the hole deeper and deeper, and soon it was large enough for him to slip under the bottom board.

“Now I can run away,” he grunted softly to himself.  He looked all around the pen.  His father, mother, sisters and brothers were fast asleep in their cool holes of earth.

“I’m going!” said Squinty, and the next moment he had slipped under the side of the pen, through the hole he had dug, and once more he was out in the garden.

“Now for some adventures!” said Squinty, in a jolly whisper—­a pig’s whisper, you know.

CHAPTER III

SQUINTY IS LOST

This was the second time Squinty had run out of the pen and into the farmer’s garden.  The first time he had been caught and brought back by Don, the dog.  This time Squinty did not intend to get caught, if he could help it.

So, after crawling out through the hole under the pen, the little pig came to a stop, and looked carefully on all sides of him.  His one little squinty eye was opened as wide as it would open, and the other eye was opened still wider.  Squinty wanted to see all there was to be seen.

He cocked one ear up in front of him, to listen to any sounds that might come from that direction, and the other ear he drooped over toward his back, to hear any noises that might come from behind him.

What Squinty was especially listening for was the barking of Don, the dog.

“For,” thought Squinty, “I don’t want Don to catch me again, and make me go back, before I have had any fun.  It will be time enough to go back to the pen when it is dark.  Yes, that will be time enough,” for of course Squinty did not think of staying out after the sun had gone down.  Or, at least, he did not imagine he would.

But you just wait and see what happens.

Squinty looked carefully about him.  Even if one eye did droop a little, he could still see out of it very well, and he saw no signs of Don, the big dog.  Nor could Squinty hear him.

Don must be far away, the little pig thought, far away, perhaps taking a swim in the brook, where the dog often went to cool off in hot weather.

“I think I’ll go and have a swim myself,” thought Squinty.  He knew there was a brook somewhere on the farm, for he could hear the tinkle and fall of the water even in the pig pen.  But where the brook was he did not know exactly.

“But it will be an adventure to hunt for it,” Squinty thought.  “I guess I can easily find it.  Here I go!” and with that he started to walk between the rows of potatoes.